Midnight Tryst
by musicormisery4105
Summary: She had everything, until she was bitten. Now her life is in shambles. Eventually Amber Mason must choose between her immortal family or secret love, Bentley. Follow her story of tragedy and pain as she embarks on a fight against the supernatural. Review!
1. Preface: My Immortal

**EDIT NOTE: THIS IS JUST THE PREFACE. I'D APPRICIATE IT IF YOU WOULD READ IT BUT IF YOU WANT TO SO BADLY, SKIP TO CHAPTER ONE.**

**-x-x-x-**

**AUTHORS NOTE: Just a little tip, this story is written with a few different _'point's of views' _and the correct point of view (POV) will be posted at the top of the chapter under the title. Those of you _Twilight _fans should know what I'm talking about! XD Most of them are in Amber's POV but there will be some chapters from others POV. _Also to warn you, _****_the first four or five chapters are all human, but there are vampires later in the story._****_ I'm a little nervous posting this but I hope you all enjoy the story. I love reviews, don't be shy!_**

**Much love,**

**RiP.**

**SUMMERY****_:_** Amber Mason's humanity was stolen from her by a vampire but saved by a mysterious creature. Now she has to return to her highschool while pretending to still be human but she also has the difficult task of surviving as a vampire. And ontop of all that mess, the vampire who changed her is out for revenge on her new vampire family but her unrequited crush (whom her vampire family does not approve of), Bentley Rivera is in a whole different type of danger. She has to chose: Family or Bentley?

**DISCLAIMER_: I, musicormisery4105 (or RiP), do not own the music selections used in this and the following chapters nor do I own the ideas for the vampires. Those ideas go to the credit of Stephenie Meyer, Joss Whedon and the countless research I've done using all sorts of websites._** **_All movie and book references belong to the appropriate owners and I am in way associated with them. I do however own my characters, the Harper Mansion and the small town of Shiloh :) As well as the poem at the bottom._**

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**Playlist_: MY IMMORTAL - EVANESCENCE_**

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**PREFACE**

**_AMBER POV_**

First off I'd like to share two things.

_One, sometimes life can change in a complete instant. _

_Two, everything that happens, happens for a reason. You may not see it this second, or even an hour from now. But if it's meant to happen, it will happen. Just sit back and enjoy the ride._

I never have given much thought to either of those sayings before but if I would have known what was to come in the future, maybe I would have. In just a few short hours my life would literally fall apart and then get pieced back together. But only, this time, my picture perfect life was put back together upside down. Things would never, and I literally mean _never_, be the same. Nothing could change what happened that fateful day. I think even if I had a time machine and was able to go back in time, I still wouldn't be able to change the events that led up to breaking point, the climax, the moment my life changed. Maybe if we would have never gone out into the woods that night everything would still be normal and I wouldn't be sentenced to a life of immorality as a bloodsucking monster.

But then again if we never would have gone out there into the woods that night we would not be where we are now in life. So many things might have never happened. Things that I could never and would never, ask to loose.

Now besides the obvious drawbacks of being what I am, I am happy. I have found the love of my pure existence and I have a large loving family who each has one of their own to love unconditionally. I guess I will have my happily-ever-after, after all. To me I don't view our choice as a mistake, I think of it as fate. Fate is what brought my mate and I together and aloud us to be together for eternity. Of course we paid a great price for that eternity but if I could go back and change anything—well I wouldn't.

My name is Amber Dawn Mason—and this is my story.

_Mysterious boy_

_Are you finished pretending?_

_Rambunctious girl_

_Is the time finally right?_

_These shadows are fading_

_Cloudy skies are becoming clear_

_As are my feelings, my dear._

_The lives we live are too short_

_O, how people find out quickly_

_Too many of them don't notice_

_Until it's too late_

_Eventually, their time runs out_

_So long and goodbye, my love._

_Daybreak brings upon a new day_

_A day I will never let pass by_

_Murmuring those three words_

_Those words, you love to hear them_

_Darkness falls_

_It's now or never_

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**So that's the Preface for you all. TO BE CONTINUED. Tell me what you think! ****And while you are at it, check out my Twilight fanfic, _'Lachrymose'_. Or, look at any of my other fanfics that are listed on my profile page. Pictures, playlists as well as other odds and ends will be available on my profile as the story progresses. So keep that in mind as well. That is all for now :)**


	2. Chapter 1: The Great Escape

**Authors Note: _Well, I haven't gotten any feedback yet but I decided to post the first chapter because I don't blame anyone for not commenting on the Preface, there wasn't much to even read anyways. So this is much, much, much longer. Over 5,400 words to this first chapter (I know, LONG but it had to be done) Anyways, I hope you enjoy the first OFFICIAL chapter and I hope to get some reviews! :)_**

**_Love,_**

**_- RiP_**

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**PLAYLIST:**

**_The Great Escape_**

**by**

**Boys Like Girls**

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**Chapter One – The Great Escape**

**Amber POV**

**B_EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE_P**!

At the sound of my loud, pounding alarm clock I rolled over with a loud groan. I murmured a string of curses under my breath for about five straight minutes and then sat up and almost chucked the alarm clock out my window in annoyance. I took a quick glance out my window, it wasn't rainy but it wasn't sunny either—it just looked gloomy outside today. Fabulous, for Tennessee in September, the weather was starting to look horrible. Slowly I trudged my way into the bathroom to take a shower. I stripped down out of my favorite pajamas which basically consisted of a tight fitting light pink tank top and a pair of matching pajama pants with little red and white hearts on them. I had bought them while shopping with Shay the previous week.

I stepped under the shower head and let the warm water wake me up and relax all my muscles. I used my favorite raspberry smelling shampoo and my vanilla smelling body wash and then stepped out of the shower while wrapping a warm fluffy blue towel around my body.

I blow dried my hair about half way and then I ran to my closet. After throwing the doors open I dug around to find something to wear to school. Finally, after about fifteen minutes of switching through different outfits and deciding that each one I picked out wasn't the one, I found a dark pink v-neck t-shirt from _Aeropostale_ and a pair of tight fitting jeans that would go well with my favorite pair of pink ballet flats.

I ran back into the bathroom and straightened my hair before taking in my reflection to make sure I looked okay. I saw a fifteen year old girl—about to turn sixteen in almost a week—with a heart shaped face, long black hair that fell a few inches past her shoulders, bright green eyes with full pink lips staring back at me. I smiled at my reflection and naturally my reflection smiled back at me.

I ran down the stairs as fast as I possibly could without falling or running into something. I was late—_again_. And Brie was going to murder me if I made us late—_again_.

So I guess you are wondering who I am, well my name is Amber Mason and I am fifteen—and like I said, almost sixteen—years old. I live in the small high class town of Shiloh, Tennessee and go to Shiloh High School, or well we all call it SHS for short.

As you entered our quaint town there was a large billboard that read,

'_Welcome to Shiloh, Tennessee. Population: 1,021. Founded in 1872._'

Shiloh is the type of town where everyone knows everyone else and knows everyone's business. It's just the way it is, I've lived here all my life and I know for a fact that Shiloh is never going to change. Funnily enough, it reminded me of the town of 'Stars Hollow', the fictional town in my one of my favorite TV show, _Gilmore Girls_. It made me laugh every time I saw Babette or Mrs. Patty because Shiloh defiantly had their own crazy townsfolk. We even had a diner that slightly resembled _Luke's_. I wouldn't be surprised if the mayor of Shiloh, Mr. Robert Pennington, stole our little town's makeup right from the _Gilmore Girls_ show. My town is extremely strange but I guess I wouldn't have it any other way if I could.

I entered the kitchen and noticed that my mother left me an oatmeal bar and my favorite coffee mug out for me, probably knowing I was going to be late again. I quickly ate the oatmeal bar, gulped down my coffee in one swig and then ran outside to where I knew Brie was waiting.

Sure enough when I stepped outside Brie sat waiting in her beloved sky blue 2007 9-3 Saab convertible. She had the top down even though it looked like rain was looming. But besides the fact it looked like it would rain, it was pretty warm and humid. It was September but the daily temperatures were still reaching the upper eighties and lower nineties.

'_Damn you global warming_.' I thought with a giggle.

I grinned at Brie when I saw her scowling at me through the windshield of her car. I jumped down the front steps and skipped towards the car. As I opened the passenger's door I heard Brie start mumbling a string of profanities under her breath, "Amber, you are lucky that I love you or so help me god you would be dead by now." Brie remarked.

Brie Snow is eighteen and a senior, two years older than me but you could never tell. Everyone says that my personality is much older than my actual age. That would possibly explain by half my best friends are a couple of years older than me.

Brie's chin length blonde hair was straightened and she wore a pale yellow t-shirt from _Hollister_ with a white jean skirt and matching yellow and white polka dot sandals. Her green eyes showed me that she was just kidding with her comment. You could tell if Brie was really mad at you by the looks in her eyes, they changed to a darker forest green and the usual sparkle was gone from them. Brie sometimes had a problem with her temper so you never really wanted to get on her bad side.

Brie and I looked a lot alike aside from our obvious difference in hair color. Maybe that was why everyone we met thought that we were sisters even though we aren't. We might as well be though. Our parents have been friends since their Highschool days so naturally Brie and I have been friends since birth. We were practically inseparable when we were little kids.

"Aww come on, you know you love me, even if I am always late." I replied with smile.

Brie laughed at my joke and then sent the car spinning out of the driveway as usual. She was a pretty crazy driver most of the time and never really obeyed the speed limit, not that I was complaining or anything. "The others are waiting for me to pick them up." She said as she took off in the opposite direction of my house. "I don't know why I always pick you up first! Maybe we would get to school faster if I picked you up last." Brie complained with a loud sigh.

"I don't know why you are complaining, you never are actually late. You always speed so we always get there ten minutes before the final bell." I retorted.

Brie looked over at me and smiled, "Yeah, whatever." She said.

"So who are we picking up first today?" I asked her, changing the subject.

It was pretty much a daily routine that my friends and I always rode to school together. It was how we have always done it and I don't see that changing until Brie goes off to college but by that time Matt and Liv would be able to drive the us all around, but by then I'd be able to take people around too. I have my license but I'm currently not aloud to drive anyone else around without an adult for another two and a half months. My birthday is in September and I have to wait three months after I officially turn sixteen to get my supposable _real _yet_ probationary _license since I'm under eighteen. I don't think it makes much since but hey—that's the law for you.

"Well since Olivia has her own car now, she decided to pick up Shay so we only have to pick up Matt and Roxie today." Brie replied.

Brie Snow, Olivia Greene, Matthew (Matt) Perkins, Sharayah (Shay) Anderson and Roxanne (Roxie) Martínez are my best friends. We all lived in Shiloh together and oftentimes go to Lucca's Pizzeria, (the place that reminded me slightly of _Luke's _mentioned earlier) which is basically the local hang out in Shiloh, that's how we all met. As lame as it sounds that is basically the only attraction that Shiloh has. Not only do they serve pizza but they have pool tables and on Friday and Saturday nights they have a dance party with a DJ playing good music and also included a bar with non-alcoholic drinks for the students and alcoholic drinks for the legal people in town. Plus, on weekdays, they serve the best pizza in the state. Well okay, maybe that isn't true but I think so anyways.

Crazily enough, until the middle of my seventh grade year my friends and I weren't even on speaking terms, well besides Brie and I. Sure we all knew each other—I mean, Shiloh is a very small town, everyone knows everyone else. But the six of us had just never taken the time to become friends. It happened by chance that the six of us even became the close knit group that we are now.

It was one night when Brie and I were eating dinner at the Lucca's that I literally bumped into Shay while she had a plate of pizza in her hand taking it back to her seat where she was enjoying a night out with Olivia and Matt, whom she had known since they were little, kind of like Brie and I. Shay, being the sweet and caring girl that she is, blushed heavily and then proceeded to apologize profusely and even followed me into the ladies-room to try and help me get the pizza stains off of my white sweater I was wearing at the time.

While we were in the bathroom trying to clean my sweater with no prevail, Roxie had chosen that opportunity to enter the restrooms. She was having dinner with her parents and was bored so she used the excuse of needing to use the restroom to escape her parents. But when she saw Shay and I huddled around the sink, being the curious person she is and in the mood for a distraction to keep herself busy so she didn't have to go back to her parents, she came over to ask what we were doing. Roxie completely startled Shay and caused her to almost jump out of her skin. Roxie immediately apologized for startling Shay and I. She introduced herself and then asked what we were doing. Shay and I explained the whole pizza incident and how we were trying to get the stain out but were not getting anywhere to it. Roxie then made the sarcastic comment that we needed one of those _tide-to-go _sticks. Shay's face brightened up at that and suddenly she was sprinting out of the bathroom, leaving Roxie and I in a confused state.

Minutes later, Shay returned with none other than Olivia who had a _tide-to-go _stick in her hand. Olivia, who carried one of the _tide-to-go _sticks around in her purse for Matt, who apparently was always spilling food on him, let me borrow the stick and in no time the stain was barely noticeable. Soon the four of us were joking around getting to know each other and I invited all of them, including Matt, to hang out with Brie and I for the rest of the night. They happily agreed and the rest is basically history.

It's crazy how just a few little choices were able to bring the six of us together and create a bond of companionship that was more like a family bond than just a plain old friendship bond. Like I said, even since that night at Lucca's, the six of us have been really close. Sometimes I think that Matt is a little put out with being the only guy in the group but I know if push came to shove, he wouldn't have it any other way.

I was broken from my memories when I heard Brie comment, "Look's like Rox is already waiting for us."

I felt the car slow down a considerable amount and I looked through the windshield and smiled as we pulled up into a familiar looking driveway. Before us stood a pale blue two story condo, which was none other than Roxanne Martínez's house. But you _never, ever _called Roxie by her given name unless you had a death wish.

I saw Roxie sitting on her front porch step with her _My Chemical Romance_ shoulder bag in her hands. Roxie was the more punk/rocker type of the six of us. She is my age—fifteen and a sophomore—along with Shay, who is sixteen and a sophomore. Shay has her Sweet Sixteen back in August while Roxie had to wait until January for hers. Ever since we met at the Lucca's the three of us have been pretty inseparable. The funny thing is that the three of us have been in the same classes together since we were in elementary school but just never got the chance to actually talk and get to know each other better until that night at Lucca's.

Roxie wore her shoulder length dark brown hair in her usual side part with her bangs falling over her left eye. Her hazel eyes where focused on me in a mocking fashion as she stepped off the front porch and I resisted the urge to grown knowing that she was going to make some sarcastic comment as soon as she got into the car. Today she was wearing a black _My Chemical Romance_ band t-shirt that matched her shoulder bag, a pair of ripped jeans and her favorite old ragged black converse. Roxie was part Hispanic. Her father was full Hispanic while her mother was _a white girl_. So, in return, Roxie had noticeable Hispanic features with a _perfect_ tan all year round. It really wasn't fair to us pale folk.

Roxie headed towards the Saab and jumped into the backseat. As Brie started to pull out of the driveway I turned around to talk to my best friend. "Hey Rox." I said excitedly.

"Hey Amber, I take it you are the reason why Brie is so late—again?" Roxie joked.

'_Figures _' I thought sullenly. '_In the car for not even five minutes and she is already pulling the sarcastic material._'

I laughed and shook my head at my thoughts, "Probably." I told her.

"You _are _the reason Amber. You are _always_ the reason why we are late." Brie teased.

"Hey," I exclaimed, trying to defend myself, "As I pointed out earlier we are always at the school ten minutes before the bell so don't say that we are '_always late_' because we aren't." I said.

Roxie and Brie both snorted at my comment and I just huffed and turned around and stared out the windshield, ignoring their childish snickering. A few moments later I saw that we were stopping in front of a light tan house and a boy with shaggy black hair and light brown eyes came out of the house and jumped into the backseat with Roxie. He was wearing light wash jeans and a black and white striped polo shirt. He had jumped into the car before Brie had even made a full stop. That was Matt Perkins for you. As soon as he was safely in the car Brie pulled out of his driveway and started in the direction of the school.

Matt turned to me with an evil glint in his eye. I already knew what the next words out of his mouth would be. We went through the same routine every single morning.

"So Amber, late again are we." Matt joked.

I turned around in my seat and childishly stuck my tongue out at him, just like always, and then turned my attention to my window and looked outside—again, just like always. I heard Brie and Roxie, who had already been trying to hide their amusement, start to laugh loudly at the usual playful banter that went on between Matt and I in the mornings. Instead of retorting with a sarcastic comment, I opt to ignore them and looked out the side of the car. I stared as the trees molded together into a bright green blur as a result of Brie pushing harder down on the cars accelerator. I knew by now not to check the speed that she was driving, I decided that for once ignorance was bliss.

Both Matt and Olivia are seventeen years old and are juniors at SHS. They have known each other for years and have been really good friends since they met. The funny thing is Olivia and Matt are both absolutely crazy about each other but neither of them are brave enough to take the plunge and tell the other one that they liked them. Brie, Roxie, Shay and I have had a bet running for the past two years we have been friends on who will take the plunge first. Brie and Shay are thinking that Matt will make the first move but both Roxie and I think that Olivia will be the first one to crack. Brie often jokes that Matt and Olivia have a lot of _U.R.S.T_, which according to her is _U_n-_R_esolved _S_exual _T_ension. They are always arguing and are always at each other's throats—but in the '_I-like-you-so-I'm-purposely-going-to-be-mean-to-you-to-show-you-that-I-like-you_' way rather than the '_I'm-going-to-kill-you_' way.

'_They would make a really sweet couple if they would just admit their feelings to each other. Everyone else sees it except for them_.' I thought to myself.

Matt interrupted my thoughts by apologizing, "I'm just kidding, Merce. You know that." He said, apologizing for his earlier stunt.

I felt my anger that I had built up previously retreating when I realized that he used my nickname. 'Merce' was a nickname that my friends had given me and if you really wanted something from me you could use my nickname and I would melt like pudding for you. Only my best friends called me that though, I wouldn't let anyone else was allowed to. The only exception to that rule was family of course. It was a rather odd nickname, since my name was Amber. But, there was a story behind it. My best friend, whom wasn't part of the 'Super Six,' had moved to Shiloh my friends gave me the nickname Mercedes, which goes along with him. You'll find out soon enough why.

I turned and gave Matt a warm smile letting him know that I knew he was kidding and that he was forgiven. Matt grinned back and then he and Roxie started fighting over which radio station we were going to listen to. Roxie being her typical self wanted to listen to a rock station while Matt wanted to listen to rap. Luckily, Brie intervened before they got to arguing to bad. If the two of them snapped at each other long enough it would turn into the classic Rock VS Rap debate that they had on nearly a daily basis.

I smiled and shook my head at my friends and I watched as we pulled into the school parking lot. We pulled into a parking space alongside a 2008 Lexus ISF that was bright purple in color. I recognized it immediately—the color wasn't something you saw on car that you saw too often. It was none other than Olivia's pride and joy. She had gotten it for her sweet sixteen the previous year and now her father was finally letting her drive it to school. Olivia's father was really strict and didn't want her driving until he was absolutely sure that she wasn't going to get into a wreck. I guess he finally decided to let up and let Olivia drive to school.

Sure enough, I saw Olivia stepping out of the driver's side of the car and Sharayah getting out of the passenger's side when Brie, Roxie, Matt and I all piled out of Brie's car.

"Hey guys!" Olivia said happily as she got out of her car and waved at us.

"Hey, nice to see that you guys were finally able to make it!" Sharayah teased while looking at me. I scowled back at her.

Olivia stood proudly, leaning against the door of her car with her long chestnut hair straightened and her light grey eyes sparkling with excitement. Olivia was like an older sister to me—even more so than Brie sometimes. Brie could be moody and even a little on the bipolar side at times but Olivia was a naturally mellow person who I could always trust with anything I had to tell her.

On the other side of the car I looked over to Sharayah, or Shay as we usually called her. Sharayah was just such a mouthful that she just had everyone shorten her name down to Shay if she knew them on an informal basis. She didn't have a passionate hatred for her real name, unlike Roxie.

Shay resembled a small sprite because of how short and tiny she was. Her wavy blonde hair was pinned back into curls and her big blue eyes were teasing as she looked at me. Shay was naturally shy around most people, well besides me and my friends obviously, but once you got to know her she was not shy in any way and was extremely energetic for a person so small. Sometimes Shay was like a spring—she built up all her energy inside her and eventually she exploded with a mountain load of energy just waiting to go on an adventure. Normally that adventure consisted on either hanging out with the gang or going four-wheeler riding with some of our other friends from school that were outside of our little group.

Unfortunately, the bell rang right at that moment which meant we had about five minutes to get to our first class. I cringed back a little, knowing that I was about to get taunted by Brie.

Sure enough I heard her snort loudly a few moments later, "So…" she started out slowly, drawing her voice out. "I thought you said we are always _ten _minutes early."

"I—Uhh—" I couldn't think of a good comeback to that which sent all of my friends into hysterical laughter at the look on my face. I pouted slightly, "Well anyways, I think I'm going to go ahead and start walking to class. See you later guys." I said and got ready to leave.

"Wait!" Shay called out as I started to walk away. I stopped in my tracks to turn around and look at her, "I'll come with you." She finished.

All my other friends nodded and waved goodbye to us and left to go to their classes as well.

Shay and I started to make our way towards the large tan colored building that we called our high school. The building is only one story tall but it is split up to where there are different sections inside the school for the different subjects. It seriously reminds me of a college campus only it was all squished together into one building, it was also a hell of a lot smaller. I opened the double black doors that opened up into the schools hallway and walked inside.

I saw that many people were already littering the hallways. The main hallway that you first walk into when you enter the school held the front office and the entrances to get into the cafeteria and the gym. A long hallway led down past some math classrooms and then was a section for the sophomore lockers. I pushed my way through my fellow sophomore's to make my way to my locker with Shay on my tail since, coincidentally, her locker was right next to mine.

"So, judging by how late Brie was this morning, I'm guessing that you were late getting up this morning?" Shay teased as we pushed our way through the crowded hallway.

I groaned, "I was not late getting up, I just took a little bit longer getting ready this morning." I told her while defending myself.

"Uh-huh." Shay said with a smile.

"Wipe that smile off your face right now Sharayah Anderson, we made it to school on time today—didn't we?" I said, using her full name.

Shay held back a laugh but I saw a flash of irritation go through her eyes at hearing me speak her full name. I knew that she hated it with a '_deep-burning-passion_', or at least that's what she said. "I guess." She finally said a few seconds later while biting on her lip.

I rolled my eyes at her and continued walking, "I just wish that everyone would let that go already! Technically I have never—" I started but was suddenly cut off as I ran into a rock hard chest.

I stumbled backwards slightly at the impact and mumbled, "Ooof" under my breath at whoever had been stupid enough to run into me. I looked up to glare at said person but stopped, slightly awestruck, when I was able to figure out just who had run into me.

"Oh, I'm so sorry Amber. I wasn't really paying attention and I didn't see you. Are you okay?" a smooth, low voice asked.

Without even having to look up I knew who I had run into immediately. The fact that my cheeks were heating up and a little flutter in my stomach let me know right away who it was. I looked up—the guy standing in front of me was around 5'8" tall, compared to my 5'4", and had short dark brown hair but had longer bangs that fell onto his forehead. He had a well defined jaw line and the most gorgeous eyes I had ever seen; they were a deep electric blue. Every time I see these damn eyes I feel myself melting into putty. The boy was wearing a dark blue shirt that brought out his blue eyes and a pair of faded skinny jeans that fit him perfectly and a pair of ragged converse. I felt my lips tug at the corners into an involuntary smile. The boy smiled back at me.

He was Bentley James Rivera, my very best guy friend. Well, besides Matt that is. And, I just happened to have the biggest crush on him in the world and he didn't even have a clue.

'_Huh, maybe I shouldn't be so judgmental of Matt and Olivia. I'm probably just as bad as them._' I thought to myself with a slight scowl. '_But then again I have a good reason for not telling Bentley how I really feel about him_.'

"Yeah I'm fine." I told him when I finally found my voice. Oftentimes I tended to be very flustered around him.

"Are you sure?" he asked out of pure concern.

I nodded, "Yeah Bentley, I'm fine. I'll see you at lunch." I said and then continued my way down the hallway, giving Bentley a little wave and tried to watch discreetly as he continued in the direction he had been going in.

Shay walked beside me and smiled an evil smile. There was a glint in her eyes too—that only meant one thing.

"What?" I asked innocently.

"Do you still like him?" she asked. I bit my lip at her question; I wasn't exactly sure how to answer her question.

Bentley and I had been friends for almost four years—it seemed like such a long time ago because it almost felt like Bentley and I had been friends all our lives. Bentley, his parents and his older brother, Ryan—had moved from their hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana when Bentley was just getting ready to start seventh grade because his father, Paul Rivera, got a new, higher paying job at the local hospital where they were in desperate need of a new surgeon. Apparently, Bentley's father was '_the-best_' and Shiloh just '_had_' to have him. Bentley later told me that the hospital had given him a large amount of money just to transfer to Shiloh Medical Hospital and on top of that the hospital was paying him double of what he got when he worked in Indianapolis.

When Bentley had first moved to Shiloh, he was angry at his parents for making him leave his friends and his lifetime home but now, he said that he was glad that his father took the job. He told me that he never had such good friends back in Indianapolis—which secretly made me elated.

I was the first person who talked to Bentley once he was started our school. Most students weren't very welcoming to people who were on '_the-outside_', or rather, who hadn't lived in Shiloh their whole lives. Really, people in our town weren't always the most welcoming to newcomers. I didn't think like that though—I knew that if I ever had to move, leave my friends and start a new school, I would want to have people who would talk me through what went on in the school instead of have everyone ignore me because I was '_the-new-kid'_.

So I talked to him.

And since the very moment I had introduced myself to him on his first day, I have had a crush on him. Since that first day when I befriended him before anyone else, we were very close. My friends had given my the nickname Merce as a joke. Bentley and Mercedes – haha, laugh it up. My friends sure did, they always got a kick out of it and Bentley never could figure out exactly how I got the nickname Merce.

Bentley always loved to tease me though. He was always calling me his twin sister even though we looked absolutely nothing alike. Ironically our birthdays are only two days apart which made the twin thing make more sense. His birthday is September 22nd while mine is September 24th—coincidentally Bentley's birthday is this Saturday, while mine is on the following Monday.

That was why I never asked him out or let him have any indication that I liked him as anything more than a friend—he viewed me as a sister and he usually made that known to me and pretty much everyone else around us. It got kind of embarrassing at times. It was like he purposely made 'brother and sister' jokes just to see me squirm. Come to think of it, maybe he _did _do it purposely.

'_Don't think like that_!' My conscious screamed at me.

I knew I wasn't sure if I could handle possible rejection from him or the fact that it could mess up our close friendship so it wasn't just because he didn't think of me as anything other than a little sister. I certainly didn't think of him as an older brother—even if he did act like one at times.

'_I don't need him for that though. That is Matt's job_.' I scowled. I thought back to Shay's question. To my heart the answer was obvious, but my mind had other ideas. '_Should I tell Shay the truth or not…'_ I thought.

After a moment of thinking I answered her, "Sort of." I said cryptically.

"Come on, you have to give me more than that." Shay fussed.

I sighed, "Well I mean I'm not really sure of my feelings for him anymore Shay, after I decided last year that I wasn't going to do anything about it because I thought it would ruin our friendship I've tried not to think about it. There's also the little fact that he views me as his little sister. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not really sure if I still do or not." I told her. It was only half the truth. The reasons of course were true but the part about me not thinking about it was defiantly not true. It has been on my mind every single day for months.

Shay smirked, "Sure you don't." she said while rolling her eyes, "You still love him." She accused.

"I'm not sure if _love_ is the right term for it." I told her grudgingly while I rolled my eyes.

"You love him you just wont admit it." She said and then she turned on her heel and started walking off towards her first class.

I stood there for one moment thinking about her words but then pushed them away. Bentley and I—we were just friends. That was all we would ever be, no matter how much I wished that everything was different.

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**So, that was the very first chapter. ****Excruciatingly **long, huh? Well, I hope that you enjoyed it. REVIEW/FAVORITE/ALERT or whatever it is that you want to do. But if you favorite or alert the story, please take the time to leave a review with some feedback. Any ideas on the plot yet? And if you have any questions or issues please feel free to mention them as well. Anyways, that's all folks :) Until next time (which will be probably a couple days from now.) Adios!


	3. Chapter 2: Bittersweet Life

**Authors Note: Hello everyone, I'd just like to take the time to thank the THREE lovely people who took the time to reviewed the last chapter: **Elenie**, **Russetstorm**, and **Charlotte1993 **:) Thank you so much for the wonderful comments and I hope you will continue reading. Maybe this time we can shoot for FIVE to TEN comments? Because I know there are plenty of people reading the story! ;) Anyways, without further delay, here is Chapter Two! _Also, In the last chapter I noticed some of the words somehow got stuck together without spaces, I don't know exactly what happened there but hopefully it was a fluke and won't accure in this chapter. If it does, please let me know and I will do something to fix that :)_**

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**_Playlist_**

_Chapter Two:_ Bittersweet Life_ by My Favorite Highway_

**:)**

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**Chapter Two – Bittersweet Life**

**Amber POV**

"So then he was all totally like 'I don't like you anymore, I like Nichole a lot more than you because she puts ou—'"

I covered my ears before hearing the rest of the pretty blonde's sentence. I want to slam my head down against the table in a repetitive pattern as a result of serious frustration as I listened to the girl drone on and on. All she was ever talking about these days was gossip, gossip, gossip. And it was mostly gossip about things I really didn't want to know.

_'AH! Gaaah_!' I thought angrily. I sat and tried to re-center my concentration, '_Wow, even my own thoughts aren't even making sense right now. Show's you how frustrated I am_.'

I was currently sitting next to two of the most annoying people ever to walk the face of the earth. One of them was Carly Frayys, who was absolutely gorgeous. She had shoulder length platinum blonde hair and pretty hazel eyes and the type of body any girl would kill for and made the boys go crazy. Carly was extremely popular, the schools biggest gossip and caption of the cheerleading squad—although that was something I could care less about. The second girl was Carly's best friend, Audrey Mills. Audrey had long black curly hair and big blue eyes. She was pretty but know where near as pretty as Carly.

Carly and I were friends, but we weren't exactly close for the obvious reason that she bugged the crap out of me with her endless gossip. If she would tone down the drama-rama I could actually have a lot of fun hanging out with her. She also wasn't your typical blonde cheerleader. She was actually pretty smart and usually was nice. Although she defiantly had her bitch-moments, but then again, who doesn't?

I was not friends with Audrey at all though. We had been best friends at one point when we were in elementary school but after a while we grew apart when we entered Highschool and now we barely speak to each other. Truthfully she has turned into a bitch since she joined the cheerleading squad and frankly I'm only being civil to her for Carly's sake.

I was sitting with them in my third period class, which happened to be Study Hall. I was trying to come up with ways to kill our teacher, Mr. Grays, for sitting me next to these two insane people. Sure, I was friends with Carly but I really did not care to hear about how Kevin Emerson, Carly's on and off again boyfriend had cheated on her—for about the millionth time—with the school whore, Nichole Thames. I had no idea why Carly kept crawling right back to Kevin. He had hurt her so many times and despite how annoying she could be sometimes, she still didn't deserve it. It was obvious that he was just going to keep cheating on her again and again but she just didn't get it. I rolled my eyes and was brought out of my thoughts by Carly's voice yelling at me.

"—Amber, were you even listening to me at all?" she asked in an annoyed tone.

"Oh of course I was! How could I _not_ be listening? I mean this is freakin' huge! Kevin cheated on you with _Nichole_. That so totally sucks." I said, the whole time my voice dripping with sarcasm that neither Carly, nor Audrey seemed to notice it.

"I know!" Carly cried with a small pout.

'_Obviously she can't tell sarcasm from the truth.'_ I thought while resisting the urge to roll my eyes.

"So did you hear about Emma Adams and Brendan Wright having—" Audrey started but thankfully was cut off by the bell, signally the end of class. I was pretty much one hundred percent sure I did not want to hear the rest of that sentence. Everyone at SHS knew that Emma and Brendan were very—adventurous with their 'extra circular activities,' if you know what I mean.

I rushed out of the classroom as quick as I could before Audrey or Carly could get in a word otherwise. As I got to the cafeteria I saw Shay and Roxie waiting for me at the cafeteria doors just like they always did. I met up with them and then together we walked to the lunch line as I tried to calm myself. Minutes later I found myself surrounded by my other friends Ethan Abbott, Lola Reese, Xander Snipes and of course none other than Bentley Rivera.

I tugged slightly on the ends of my hair while muttering a string of profanities under my breath before finally saying, "Stupid studyhall. Stupid Mr. Grays. Stupid, stupid, stupid gossip freaks trying to obliterate my brain." I mumbled.

"Did you sit by Carly and Audrey again?" Ethan asked while laughing vaguely.

"I had to." I replied, pouting slightly. "Mr. Gray decided that he would make assigned seats today and now I have to sit with the two of them for the rest of the freakin' year!" I wailed. "I swear if I have to hear one more time about how Kevin cheated on Carly with Nichole I would shoot someone in the foot!"

"Why would you shoot someone in the foot, Amber? What damage would that do?" Xander asked.

I raised my eyebrow at him, "It's an expression, Xander—get with the program already." I sighed, sarcasm practically dripping from my words.

"Yeah Xander, get with the program!" Bentley countered in a high-pitched mocking voice.

Xander and Ethan were all trying to suppress their laughter while Lola, Shay and Roxie all looked at me with understanding etched onto their faces and nodding their heads in agreement while completely ignoring Xander and Bentley's theatrics. Unfortunately for them, the girls knew all too well how I felt, the boys were extremely lucky that they never had to sit through endless gossiping torture.

"I know exactly what you mean Amber," Roxie said, "Earlier today I had to listen to Audrey give me all the details about how Emma and Brendan had—" she started but I quickly put my hand over her mouth and her next words became muffled by my hand.

"Do not finish that sentence; I'm pretty sure nobody wants to hear it." I told her with a grimace as I took my hand away from her mouth.

"Thank god." Xander said with a slight grin.

"Audrey and Carly were going to tell me the full story, probably with juicy details but the bell cut them off before they got even a sentence into it." I explained.

Everyone sniggered and giggled about what I had said but we all agreed that nobody wanted to really know what happened between Emma and Brendon. And it wasn't as if they were bad people either, it's just that we usually didn't like digging into peoples personal lives. Emma and Brendon didn't mind, they were used to people gossiping about them by now. But, my friends and I weren't too big on gossip, thank god.

"So are we sitting at the usual table?" Lola asked us, taking the conversation into a different direction.

Bentley nodded, "I guess we are." He said.

Ethan, Xander, Roxie, Shay and I all nodded in agreement.

"Yeah we are. Avery, Gabrielle, Nick and Cody are all waiting for us at the table already since they went through the other lunch line." Xander told us.

Lunch was the one time that the 'Super Six' split up to go off and hang out with our own friends. Brie, Matt and Olivia usually sat together by themselves, because they didn't get along with the other Juniors and Seniors while Roxie, Shay and I had plenty of friends within the Sophomore class. Avery Jennings, Gabrielle Singer, Nick Brumes and Cody Lufkin were friends of mine that we always sat with at lunch besides Bentley, Ethan, Lola and Xander. I wasn't extremely close to these guys but I sat with them none the less.

We chatted for a while, mostly about random things while we waited to go through the lunch line. After we got our food we started towards out regular table. As soon as Gabrielle saw us she looked up with a grin. She started waving us over madly and I couldn't help but laugh at her antics, Gabrielle was very—_eccentric_, I guess you can say—at times.

"Hey guys!" she called happily as we all sat down in our usual spots.

"Hi Gabrielle." I said as there was a round of "_Hello's_", "_How was class_" and "_How are you doing's_".

"So what are you guys all doing this weekend?" Gabrielle asked while taking a sip of her soda.

"Well, we're—and by _we're_ I mean Amber, Roxie and myself—are going with Brie, Matt and Olivia on our annual camping trip since this weekend is the start of Fall Break." Shay explained, picking at her sandwich.

"Oh that was this weekend?" Bentley asked as he looked a little disappointed.

"Uhmm, yeah why?" I asked as I took a bite out of the apple on my tray.

"Well we were going to party at Nick's house over the long weekend—you know since his house is the biggest. We were thinking about maybe having a party or something for you and Bentley since your birthdays are this weekend. We were thinking about maybe inviting a lot of the kids from school but if you guys are going to be gone then just forget about it." Gabrielle said, staring down sadly at her tray.

"Well, maybe we can next weekend." Roxie suggested.

"But your guy's birthdays are _this_ weekend." Lola sulked.

"We're sorry guys but we can't just cancel now." Shay pointed out.

Roxie nodded, "Exactly, we always go camping on Fall Break. We have had this planned out for months."

Avery spoke for the first time since we sat down, "Well since you guys are busy, we will just have the party next weekend." She said.

Gabrielle frowned, "But I wanted a party this weekend…" she pouted.

Ethan laughed, "Gabrielle, I'm pretty sure you can wait a week to throw a party."

"Besides," Cody threw in, "This will give you more time to plan the party out."

"Fine!" Gabrielle gave in with a loud sigh.

"Cool. So next weekend—_party at Nick's_!" Xander announced excitedly.

"Don't I have any say in this?" Nick teased as he elbowed Xander in the arm.

"You know that you're having a party whether you like it or not. The girls have their way of roping you in to thing that you usually don't want to do but yet end up doing anyways." Xander retorted.

I had to laugh at that. "He's got you there Nick." I said.

He pouted slightly, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." He said.

"It's all in the pout!" Gabrielle laughed loudly.

I laughed again, agreeing with her and took another bite of my sandwich while Nick mock-sulked and the others started planning out the party for next weekend. I saw Bentley frown at me out of the corner of my eye but when I turned to ask what was wrong, he looked away from me quickly and started to talk to Xander. I turned my attention back to my lunch as the guilt started to seep in. I knew _exactly _what had upset Bentley. My only question was: why?

I was sitting in my last period class, Biology, practically bouncing up and down in my seat from anticipation. I wanted to get home as soon as possible so we could get going on our trip. We had already decided to take Matt's hunter green SUV since he was the only one with a car big enough to fit all of us plus all our supplies.

I was tapping my Biology lab desk absentmindedly while staring at the clock, begging it to move faster. I vaguely noticed that Bentley was turned to the side in his seat beside me and was looking at me with a very amused expression. At the beginning of the year Bentley and I had decided to be lab partners since we didn't really have any of our other friends in the class. So we shared a two person lab desk at the right-back of the classroom.

Bentley smirked slightly at me. I tore my gaze away from the clock and looked into his beautiful eyes. They held extreme amusement and mischief.

"Excited to be getting out of school?" he asked with a smirk.

I glared slightly but nodded my head none the less, "Of course I am. We have been waiting for this trip for months!" I explained and flashed him a warm smile.

I thought I saw a flash of hurt flash through his eyes but it was gone as soon as it appeared. After a moment of just staring at me his eyes turned mocking, "I never would have pegged you for the camping type." He told me.

I snorted slightly, "Hasn't anyone ever told you not to judge a book by its cover?" I asked.

"Well yeah." He replied.

"You're doing it right now, I have been camping many, many times." I informed him.

Bentley laughed at my answer, "So are you excited about your birthday on Monday?" he asked me.

I shrugged, I never really liked to make a big deal about my birthday—although my friends always thought otherwise, "Not really," I said. "I mean it's just my birthday. Basically I'll just be turning a year older."

"But Amber, this is your sweet sixteen," Bentley pointed out. "Aren't girls supposed to make a big deal out of that?" he asked.

I laughed, "I don't know, but then again—I am not your average girl so I wouldn't know. You should know this by now Bentley. You've only been practically attached to my hip for the fast four years. I'm rather hurt that you don't see my individuality right now. You better not be implying I'm just like Carly or Audrey!" I said in mock horror while putting my hand daintily over my mouth to hide my '_shock'_.

"I would never do such a thing," he chuckled in response.

I knew he was about to reply with more to say on the topic when the bell rang, making me forget anything he was able to say. I jumped out of my seat, "Bye Bentley! Have a good birthday tomorrow!" I called before rushing out of the classroom with him staring after me, frowning slightly.

If I was being honest with my self, I felt more than your average amount of guilt that I was missing my best friend/crush's birthday but there wasn't exactly anything I could do about it. Like Roxie and Shay had pointed out at lunch, we had had this trip planned out for _months_. There was no way my friends would let me cancel now. Not only would they be very angry with me, they would probably never forgive me for skipping out on them.

I quickly grabbed my things from my locker, trying to rid myself from the shame and dashed quickly to the parking lot and climbed into my usual spot in the passenger's seat of Brie's car. I was the first one outside but not long after I saw Brie and Olivia walking towards me with an enthusiastic, bouncing Roxie trailing behind.

"Hurry up slow pokes!" I yelled to them from my seat in the car.

"Geez! Chill Amber, I know that you are excited but—" Brie started but was cut off by a very excited Matt who literally tore out of the school building and was running towards me and the car. I watched in amusement as he jumped in the air, did a little leprechaun kick like on the Starbursts commercial and punched his fist in the air. Seeing in doing it sent me into a serious round of giggles.

"Whoop, whoop! Oh yeah! Let's get this show on the road already, my lovely ladies!" he yelled loudly in anticipation as he jumped into the backseat of Brie's Saab. Roxie wasn't very far behind him.

Brie just shook her head at us and laughed before I saw Shay walking out of the school as well with a large grin on her face. Before long we were standing by the Saab and Lexus with Matt, Roxie, Brie and I in our seats and Olivia and Shay leaning against Olivia's car next to us.

"So what's the plan?" Olivia asked, standing up on her tip toes and leaning over the top of the Lexus to get a better view of us.

"Well Matty is going to drive the SUV…" I started, I saw Matt pout slightly at my choice of nickname but he said nothing of it.

"I still have to go home and get the rest of my stuff together." Shay said quickly, a sheepish smile on her features.

"Me too." Brie replied.

"Okay well how about I just come and pick you all up in about an hour, sound good?" Matt proposed.

We all nodded our heads 'yes' to the idea.

"Okay cool. See ya soon." Olivia said before climbing into her Lexus and she and Shay pulling out of the parking lot.

"Alright let's get going because the sooner we leave this hell hole that is called school. The sooner that we leave here, the sooner we can leave to go to the camping spot!" Roxie cheered enthusiastically.

Matt, Brie and I burst into laughter at Roxie's fervor and then Brie spun away from the parking lot with an evil smile on her face.

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**Well, now that we are two chapters of the way in, what do you think of the characters? Amber? Bentley? Roxie? Matt? I hope that you will continue to read, give great feedback and even spread the word of the story, if you will. Now that you're done reading, all you have to do is REVIEW :) Gracias Muchos.**


	4. Chapter 3: Silent Eyes

**Authors Note: _So, I didn't get as big of a response as what I had hoped for the chapter, but it's still early in the chapters. I hope you all who are still reading and following the story either review, alert or favorite. I'd still LOVE to hear what you think of the story, what you think of the characters and their crazy stories. In this chapter there are definatly some absolute true stories (baby Jesus, the kidney thing, etc.) which I thought were pretty funny. Most of them occurred between me and my friends in one point of another. So I hope you think they are pretty funny as well. Anyways, enjoy and please review :)_**

_**- RiP.**_

**VERY IMPORTANT EDIT NOTE_:_ (PLEASE READ!) On my profile I have added pictures of the characters, they aren't perfect because I originally based my characters off of real people so...I can't be perfect but these are all actors that I ended up using in the video (trailer) I ended up making. It's on Youtube and there is also a link to it on my profile. So Make sure to check those out as well. Sorry for the Edit, but I forgot to put that in the original upload!**

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**Playlist:**

_Silent Eyes_ by Aiden.

(Preferably the acoustic version.)

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**Chapter Three – Silent Eyes**

**Amber POV**

After Brie dropped me off at my house I ran up the brick steps without tripping on them—thank god. I turned and waved goodbye to my friends before watching them speed off in the direction of Roxie's house.

I took the key from the ledge above the door on my porch and then headed into the kitchen to find something to drink. I opened the refrigerator door and found a nice, cold Dr. Pepper sitting in the fridge and I opened it and drank it greedily. As I drank my drink I noticed a piece of paper stuck to the refrigerator that I had missed in my rush this morning.

**_Amber,_**

**_Your father and I both have to work late tonight so we won't be back she you off. Make sure that you have everything packed. This is your first camping trip alone so do not blow it. Don't go into the woods alone, don't do anything stupid and please don't let Matt light the fire or anywhere near the matches. We all know what happened last time. Keep Roxie away from the fire too. That poor girl is like a pyroholic. Be good and stay safe. We love you sweetie. We will see you when you get back._**

**_Love you,_**

**_Mom and Dad_**

I spit out my Dr. Pepper when I started reading the line about Roxie being a pyroholic. I mean, I guess it was true—Roxie was sort of a pyromaniac but not to the extreme, she just really liked to set things on fire for entertainment. Roxie never really did get too worked up over the actual fire, it was more of the '_blowing things up for fun_' type of thing that she was interested in.

'_I really have to tell everyone about this note.'_ I thought to myself while fighting back a grin.

I read the note over once more and then I jogged upstairs to get ready. I dragged my red and black travel bag from its hiding place underneath my bed and then unzipped it so I could put my stuff inside. I packed five pairs of jeans plus a pair of sweats, just in case. We had learned the hard way always to bring extra clothes. I put in four t-shirts, two long sleeve shirts and my SHS sweatshirt. I threw in an extra pair of tennis shoes, my bathing suit (in case we went swimming in the creek) and a couple of towels. I then added my toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbrush and all my other toiletry items I would need to have over the next few days.

Once I finished packing all of those things I went over to my CD player and my CD collection. I loved music, it was like a hideaway for me and helped me relax when I was stressed. I had a huge CD rack filled with every type of music you could imagine, everything from hardcore rock to pop, from classical to techno. I even had some rap and country thrown in there somewhere. I probably have something from ever single genre possible.

I took out one of my older CD's from the case and placed the CD in the CD player. Soon the lyrics of '_In Fates Hands_' by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus filled the room. I smiled and started to sing the lyrics to the song softly to myself and then went off in search for anything else I would need for the trip.

I knew I had everything I would possibly need for the trip by the time I saw a hunter green 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV pull into the driveway. I practically skipped down the stairs, excited to spend the Fall Break away with my friends on our long awaited camping trip that we have been planning for months. I quickly scribbled a note to my parents telling them that I was leaving, I loved them and I would keep Roxie and Matt away from the fire and told them not to worry. I giggled as I left the house and shut the door behind me before locking it.

We would not be back until Wednesday or early Thursday morning at the latest. The next week was an extended weekend and our school's fall break that lasted Saturday and ran until Wednesday and then we would be back in school by Thursday.

I ran down to the SUV and saw Roxie nearly hanging out the window, waving frantically and telling me to hurry my slow ass up so that we could get going already. I laughed and threw open the SUV's hunter green door and jumped in. Before I even had the door completely closed, Matt was already pulling out of the driveway. I squealed slightly and slammed the door shut as he raced towards the highway and the cut off that led to the woods where we would be camping out.

"So Roxie you will never guess what happened when I got home." I said with a secretive grin as I threw my bag back behind the back seat.

Roxie was instantly intrigued, "What happened?" she asked.

"I found a note from my mom and dad." I announced.

I heard Matt snort for the driver's seat and I kicked the back of it with my foot. He looked up with a jaded expression, "And why is that so exciting, Amber?" he asked.

"Well what did it say?" Roxie asked as she completely ignored Matt's talking.

I watched through the rearview mirror as Matt's rolled his eyes and I laughed softly, "She told me not to let Matt get anywhere near the matches after what happened last time." I said.

Roxie started laughing, "Are you serious?" she managed to ask through her laughter.

Everyone else but Matt was cracking up but I just had to change that but before I got the chance to explain the rest of the note Matt glared at me, "You suck." He said.

I smiled, "I don't care." I replied.

"Actually I would have expected your mom to say something about Roxie and the matches." Brie said.

We all laughed as Roxie glared at her.

"She did, she called Roxie a pyroholic." I said.

Shay smiled, "More like pyromaniac." She said.

"My thoughts exactly." Olivia giggled.

Roxie and Matt were now scowling at all of us like two year olds.

"Oh come on cheer up guys, you know we are just kidding around." Brie mediated.

I watched as Matt and Roxie both shrugged off Brie's comment. I reached across the seat to Roxie and gave her hug, "Aww come on Rox! You know that we love you." I said.

"I'm starting to think otherwise." Roxie quipped. "Kidding!" she said when I glared at her.

I guess I should explain a few things, every year me and my friends go on our annual camping trip. We pack up camping supplies and hang out the whole week end, explore and have a real kick ass time while we are there. We have had so many fun times while camping—from Matt's extreme fear of squirrels, Brie's horrible poison ivy problem, to the little incident between me and Roxie when I told her that if you poked someone hard enough in the kidney you would automatically pee. Matt thought it would be funny to jab me in the side and I scared the crap out of Roxie by screaming I peed myself and she believed me. The funny thing was that I had been jokingly sitting on her lap at the time, and she literally threw me off her lap and started rubbing on her jeans in a frantic matter. I had to stop myself from going into hysterics over that memory; it defiantly was something I would never forget. We always have such a good time. I just know that this year is going to be great.

This was the first year our parents were letting us go without supervision, normally Lester Harper, a good friend of ours and of our families, would come with us but this year all of our parents had agreed to let us go on our own. I was going to make damn sure that we would not screw this up. I wasn't about to let that happen.

"So, what do we want to do first?" Olivia asked from the passenger's seat.

Matt was driving of course, Olivia sat shot gun while Shay, Roxie, Brie and I were squeezed into the middle seat with all of our camping stuff was thrown in the back.

"We should probably set up camp first—let's just not let Matty touch the tents this time; we don't need a disaster like last time." Brie jibed.

Matt frowned into the rearview mirror too look back at the four of us who were trying to hold back our laughter, "Thanks for the support Brie." He said.

"Let's stick with him going to get firewood for the fire in the woods." Shay suggested. "Who wants to go with him?" she asked.

"I will." I volunteered. "We all know that I'm pretty much just as bad as setting up tents as Matt is."

"Okay, as soon as we get everything unloaded for the SUV you and I can go into the woods and then we can try and set up a fire." Matt said.

"Matt hun, sorry but you are staying far, far away from those matches. I will light the fire. We'll all be safer that way and we won't be endangering any of those cute little forest animals that want to run away when they see you because they know how horrible you are at lighting fires." I said, my voice heavy with sarcasm but quickly, I tried to become more serious. "And while are we getting firewood, Brie, Olivia, Shay and Roxie can set up the tents."

Olivia nodded and then turned in her seat to face me, "It's going to be the same set up as usual—you, Shay and Roxie in one tent, Brie and I in the second and then since Lester isn't here with us, Matty gets his own this year." Olivia said.

Shay started giggling next to me, "Don't you all find it odd that Matty is the only guy that hangs out with us?" she turned to Matt who was frowning, "I mean you are the only guy out of the six of us. Are you gay or something?" she teased.

Matt scowled, "I'm NOT gay." He said firmly. "I honestly have no idea why I am always hanging out with you crazy girls but I have a feeling that if I would refuse to do something that you guys want me to do you would just force me to come wherever you guys are trying to get me to go to in the first place, so why waste time and energy putting up a fight when I know I will just loose the battle anyways." He reasoned.

Olivia laughed, "Wow, he catches on fast." She said.

We all laughed and then continued to discuss what we were going to do on the rest of our trip and what else we had to do once we got to our destination.

About twenty minutes later we pulled into a familiar looking grassy area close to the woods where we always made our campsite. It was far enough from civilization that we wouldn't have any intruders coming up upon us but was still close enough that we could get somewhere quickly by car if we really needed to.

After unloading all of the stuff from the SUV Olivia, Brie, Roxie and Shay went to work putting up the tents while Matt and I headed towards the woods to get firewood.

The forest that we were staying in was quite large, it was a little overgrown but we had trails that ran through the forest. When we weren't actually camping up here on our trips we would ride our four-wheelers up here. We had made plenty of four-wheeler trails up through the woods here and rode on them often enough that they never really overgrew too much. We wouldn't just limit ourselves to just the six of us coming out here either. Roxie, Shay and I had taken Bentley, Ethan and Xander out here plenty of times and ridden their four wheelers as well, although when we went on camping trips it was an unwritten rule that it was just Olivia, Matt, Brie, Shay, Roxie and I who went. No exceptions, aside from chaperones like Lester.

As we walked in a comfortable silence, I took in the forest around me like I always did when we were out here. The trees were extremely large. Some of their trunks were wider than me and Matt standing side by side. It was several degrees cooler than what it was in the sunny and grassy space where we always made our camp than out here in the woods. I loved being in the woods but I never stayed in here too long, I always had the creepy feeling of being watched. It kind of freaked me out too.

'_I wonder if Matt ever had that creepy feeling as well_," I mused.

"Hey Matty?" I asked.

I heard a grunt of response and turned my head in the direction of where he was currently bent over while picking up a large log, "Yeah?" he asked.

"Do you ever get this weird feeling like you are being watched when we are in the woods?" I asked him in a hushed tone.

Matt turned to me, "Not really, why?" he asked, curiously concerned.

I quickly covered my emotions and put on an expressionless mask, "No reason, just wondering." I lied.

He shrugged and we both went back to looking for wood but the uneasy feeling of being watched would not leave the pit of my stomach. It just wouldn't go away. I was being paranoid, that was it was. Suddenly I heard a tree branch snap and I instantly stiffened, '_What the hell was that? That sounded like it was further off in the woods than Matty and I normally go, it wasn't anywhere near the four wheelers paths. I know for a fact that there are not many wild animals out here in this part of the forest so what could it be. I need to relax, I'm just hearing things. That's all. I'm hearing things because I'm scared.' _I thought to myself frantically.

"Hey Merce?" Matt asked me with a slight tease in his voice. I almost jumped out of my skin at the sound of his voice. I hadn't noticed him walking up to me.

"Yeah?" I asked him.

He frowned at me, "Are you okay?" he asked. He probably saw me stiffen earlier.

"Yeah I'm fine I just thought that I heard something out there." I said as I motioned to the deeper part of the woods where it was a lot darker than where we were standing on the four wheeler path.

"Relax. It was probably just your imagination. Nothing is going to bite you Merce, I promise." He told me with a smirk and a chuckle.

I laughed uneasily, "Yeah your right." I said and tried to calm myself down but I just couldn't shake off that stupid eerie feeling away from the pit off my stomach.

I scanned the forest with my eyes and I thought I saw something moving around in the shadows but I wasn't exactly sure of myself. But that was when I saw it, something blurring through the trees at a super fast speed—almost hyper speed and as soon as I blinked it was completely gone.

"I'm seeing and hearing things because I'm scared, that's all." I said quietly to myself. "There is nothing to be afraid of out here. Nothing is going to hurt me."

We continued our work in a tense silence but I found that I was being extremely aware of my surroundings and I would just tense up at the slightest sounds. I tried to keep myself busy by singing to myself which Matt obviously found pretty amusing but I knew he was freaked out too. I secretly wondered if he saw it too.

"_**You sit there in your heartache, **_

_**Waiting on some beautiful boy to, **_

_**To save you from your old ways, **_

_**You play forgiveness, **_

_**Watch it now, Here he comes,**_

_**He doesn't look a thing like Jesus, **_

_**But he talks like a gentleman, **_

_**Like you imagined, **_

_**When you were young, **_

_**Can we climb this mountain, **_

_**I don't know, **_

_**Higher now than ever before, **_

_**I know we can make it if we take it slow, **_

_**Let's take it easy, Easy now, Watch it go, **_

_**We're burning down the highway skyline, **_

_**On the back of a hurricane, **_

_**That started turning, **_

_**When you were young, **_

_**When you were young**_." I sang softly. I loved that song; it was called 'When You Were Young' by The Killers.

"Nice." Matt said suddenly.

I looked up at him in confusion, "What are you talking about?"

"You're singing. You have a habit of singing to yourself when you are nervous, scared or bored and right now I think I'm starting to lean towards the first two." Matt answered.

I sighed, "I'm not so sure about the nervous part, but I am a little freaked out about being in the woods." I said truthfully.

"Why? You have never had a problem with being out here in the woods before." Matt questioned me.

"I know that, Matt but something is different this time. I can feel it." I told him after I thought for a while.

I resumed my singing after we stopped speaking and I found myself getting lost in the lyrics and melody of the song I was singing. Slowly I was starting to forget about the uneasy feeling in my stomach although it was still present. It was a weird sensation of being watched and I knew it wasn't Matt and that was what was scaring me.

It was getting darker and colder by the second and I could tell that even Matt, who had at first be totally at ease, was starting to tense up at the slightest sounds. I couldn't ignore the fact that the forest was entirely too quiet—eerily too quiet. Except for the sounds of Matt's breathing and my soft singing the rest of the forest was in a deadly silence.

My head snapped up when I heard a humming sound. I immediately looked over at Matt to see if he was humming but he wasn't. He was looking in the direction of the deeper part of the forest again. I saw a dark shadow but as soon as I tried to focus on it—it was just gone. That's when I saw it again, the same blurring movement from before. Something was there and it was watching them. I knew I needed to get out of the woods immediately, if I didn't I was probably going to have a panic attack. What could possibly be going it, it was moving so fast you could hardly see it. No human or animal possessed that quality. I had never really believed in the supernatural but I knew that nothing that was exactly _normal _could be doing that. It was way to large to be any type of bird and even bears, wolves and coyotes weren't that big or could move that fast. No it was something else.

My thoughts were running absolutely wild as I turned to Matt with wide eyes, "Matt I think we have enough wood for now. Let's head back." I told him with a shaky voice. I heard another tree branch snap and I jumped, "Matthew Joe Perkins, so help me god if you disagree with me right now—" I trailed off.

Matt agreed without a fight which wasn't something that happened often. "Let's go." He said quickly and from the sound of his voice I immediately knew that he had saw whatever had been in the woods too.

'_What on earth could that possibly have been?!'_ I thought to myself. '_What is able to move so fast that you can't even see it? What could possibly be out there watching us?'_

"Amber, like I said earlier, nothing is going to bite you." Matt said although his voice didn't hold the same convincingness as it did previously had.

It was almost as if I was on hyper alert the very next moment. A small chuckling sound carried to my ears and a ghostly whispered said, "_That's what you think_……."

My eyes flew to Matt who was staring back at me and I knew that it wasn't him who had laughed or spoken.

"Was that you?" he asked in a hushed tone.

I shook my head, "No." I said softly.

"Let's get out of here." Matt said quickly before leaving as quickly as humanly possible.

I took a stupid chance and looked back into the woods. In the shadows I saw something that scared me to my very core. In the shadows I saw glowing red eyes and a pair of shining white teeth but as soon as I blinked they had disappeared.

I let out a small squeak before thinking, '_I'm just seeing things, I'm just seeing things, I'm just seeing things…"_ over and over and over again in my head but somewhere deep down in the pit of my stomach I knew that I wasn't insane. I wasn't just seeing those things in the woods. There was something out there watching us. And whatever it was wasn't very friendly.

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**So that's Chapter Three! Any thoughts my dear readers? Just click "Send a Review" at the bottom of the page (It's now a Green and White button I think) to send me your thoughts :)**


	5. Chapter 4: This Is The End

**Authors Note: _Hey everyone, I would just like to take the time to say thank you for the awesome feedback from the last chapter :) I'm glad you guys are all enjoying the characters and the plot lines so far! Even though only three people reviewed, I got more viewing counts from last chapter than ever before! Anyways, I will stop nagging now. Alright, moving on, this is one of the chapters where you might all get a little angry with me (and maybe goosebumps, as one of the reviews from last chapter stated), especially towards the end. The plot thickens (yay) but there is a, surprise of sorts, at the end. Anyways, I have a few announcements: _**

**1.) My fanfic's website just launched a few days ago. Right now, it's mostly centered about this fanfic, "Midnight Tryst" but eventually I will get in some of my Lachrymose stuff :) **

**2.) The "Midnight Tryst" video (trailer) is still up for you to view. So check it out. If you have a youtube account, feel free to add me or comment on the video itself. **

**3.) The playlists that are located at the top of the chapter each time are there because I think that that song fits the chapter wonderfully. If you want, youtube the song, or if you already have it in your music library, listen to it while reading the chapter :) I think it helps me focus more! So I hope you all enjoy the song choices as well.**

**4.) There is a little bit of language in this chapter, but this story is rated "T" so if you don't like the language, please skip over it because in some places, it can't be avoided.**

**And, well I can't think of anything else. So, on with it :) Here you go. Chapter Four!**

**Peace, **

**- RiP!**

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**Playlist: **

**_This Is The End (For You My Friend)_ by Anti-Flag.**

**(This song is used more for the title than the actual lyrics, but it's still good!)**

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**Chapter Four – This Is The End (For You My Friend)**

**Amber POV**

Terrified by what we had just seen and heard, Matt and I walked as swiftly as we could back to the campsite. When we first started our short trek back to the campsite when were able to walk in completely silence as both of us were lost in our own thoughts. But soon, however, that silence was shattered. Matt's love for gabbing and hatred for awkward silence won over in this particular situation.

"I don't think we should say anything to the others right away." Matt said plainly.

I looked over at him as I continued to walk, "What do you mean? Why not?"

"I think it will freak them out too much. I mean, we don't know what it was. It could have been absolutely nothing, our imagination getting the best of us. Or maybe someone playing a joke on us." He explained.

"But Matt, what if it wasn't a joke?" I questioned in a small voice.

His eyebrows rose, "I don't even want to think about that Amber."

"But Matt—" I started to plead.

"No Amber, I don't even want to think about that." Matt said.

I groaned in frustration at his stubbornness, "God damnit Matthew, this is not something we can keep from them!" I hissed.

He stopped and glared, "And why the hell not?" he growled in response.

I sighed and tried to calm my anger, "Because, we could be in danger. They need to be aware of this because this isn't something we can fool around with. I know you don't want to think about that but you have to. For all of our safety, you have to consider the _all_ possibilities."

"So what are you saying Amber? Are you suggesting that we just _pack up and leave_? We've only been here for a few hours!" Matt protested. I was about to reply but he cut me off, "Are you making all this up because you want to go back home?" He stopped in thought and then spat at me, "This weekend is Bentley's birthday. Why didn't I think of this before! It's obvious that this is why your acting like this? Are you feeling guilty? Wait, don't answer that. Of course you are, you want us all to go home because you feel bad about missing his birthday. Am I right, or am I right?" Matt accused me.

I shook my head, "Well of course I feel guilty. Bentley is my best friend and yes I feel guilty about missing his birthday but I was never suggesting that we leave. That wasn't the point at all. I was just suggesting that we let the other's know about what we saw."

"They won't believe us." He said stonily.

"How do you know that?" I retorted.

He ran his hand through his hair, "Because, they will think we're just seeing things. I can tell you that now. They will."

"Maybe they will but then again maybe they won't. You can't see the future Matt, it's impossible." I snorted out with a short laugh. "Why are you such a pessimist!" I said.

He grinned, "Just to ruin your optimism." I huffed in response but he ignored me, "Come on. Let's hurry back. I don't like standing here in the middle of the woods."

By the time we reached it we saw that the girls had already finished putting up the tents and were currently working on making a small fire-ring made out of rocks around the fire pit so that once we made a fire, the fire would not spread into the grass. It was something we had taken to doing every time we came out here. The one time we _didn't _make the fire-ring the fire but a _little _out of control. So now we take all the necessary safety precautions.

I knew that neither Matt nor I had calmed down since we heard that completely chilling voice whisper in the wind to us from the darkening woods. Our short argument hadn't helped things either. I understood why he didn't want to tell the others but we had to. I just had a bad feeling our trip was going to turn south. And I couldn't shake that feeling away. The walk back to camp hadn't helped us one bit. If anything I was growing more and more freaked out by the second. I thought about the voice once again and a series of involuntary shivers were sent down my spinal cord as I thought about how evil the voice had sounded.

"What was that?" Brie asked, noticing my shivers from where she stood, nearly ten feet away from me.

I frowned, "Just a cold chill." I lied.

I looked over at Matt. His eyes were wide with fear and was shaking slightly just like I was. I knew he was thinking about _it_. Olivia, Roxie and Shay all looked questionably at us as we came into their view but Matt and I just walked in a shaky silence to the fire and set our firewood down without a word.

As I sat down in front of the fire ring I put my head in between my knees and talked quietly to myself. "I'm just seeing things, I'm just seeing things, I'm just seeing things, I'm just seeing things…" I mumbled almost incoherently.

"Amber, what's wrong?" I heard Brie ask as she sat down beside me and put a comforting hand on my shoulder.

I looked over at Matt for help but he was too lost in his thoughts to even notice. I panicked. What was I supposed to say, "_Well, we were out in the woods when some freaking voice started talking to us through the wind and we kept seeing things move around in the shadows and that was before I saw the blood red eyes and sharp white teeth hiding in the bushes? No I'm not going insane; I really did see those things." _I thought as I ran the conversation over and over again in my head but every single time I just thought it sounded like I belonged in a mental institution or something like that. Matt was completely right. We couldn't tell them, at least not straight out, without sounding insane.

Finally I decided to ask a simple question, "Have you ever seen anything weird in the forest before? Something that is out of place and freaky looking but has no possible rational explanation of what you saw except for the possibility of loosing your sanity." I asked all my friends, still slightly dazed with confusion.

"Well, none of us have been in the woods yet. Well, apart from you and Matt." Roxie told me.

I shook my head, "Well not just today—not just this current trip but anytime we have been in the woods. Have you ever felt like someone was watching you but then when you turn around there is nothing there?" I asked softly.

I faintly heard Shay clear her throat and I looked up at her, she was nodding slightly, "Last year when me, you and Roxie went into the woods to explore I swore I saw something blurring in the forest, like it was running a thousand times fasting than anything the human eye can see." Shay confessed while looking down at her feet in embarrassment. "Don't think I'm crazy, I really did see it. More than once." I smiled; I knew _exactly _how she felt.

My eyes locked with Matt's and I gave him a triumphant smile—so maybe we weren't going crazy after all, Shay has seen it too. "Today when Matt and I were in the woods I kept getting this feeling in the pit of my stomach like someone was watching me in the forest but every time I would turn around too look there was nothing there. But then I heard this tree branch snap and then I saw something blur through the forest—just like Shay described. Matt didn't see it so I didn't say anything about it at first but I couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching me. While Matt was teasing me and that I was just being scared all of a sudden we saw the things blurring as it ran towards us but then it just disappeared." I told them all.

Olivia, Brie and Roxie's eyes were wide open in anxiety but Shay and Matt both nodded in understanding. "I was there—she wasn't just seeing things because I saw them too." Matt confirmed.

"And that is exactly what I saw last year, I'm so glad that I'm not just seeing things. I mean, you guys saw it to!" Shay seconded.

"Are you sure that you guys aren't on drugs? Are you high or something?" Olivia asked skeptically.

"Olivia!" I exclaimed while she just shrugged, "We're _not_ high and we aren't on drugs, we really did see them." I protested.

"There really is something out there." Shay said.

"And what Amber told you guys about isn't even everything—when we were getting ready to leave I was trying to calm Amber down and I said that nothing in the forest was going to bite her and then out of—" Matt started but I cut him off quickly.

"—no where we heard this really freaky chuckling sound coming from the deeper part of the woods and something started whispering to us. It said 'that's what you think.' We both heard it clearly. We got freaked out and decided to leave with the firewood that we brought back and I decided to turn around one last time and when I did I saw—" I was cut off by a scared Matt.

"—blood red eyes and shiny, sharp white teeth hiding in the shadows." Matt finished.

I felt my eyes grow wide, I didn't even know he saw them, "You saw them too?" I asked him.

Matt nodded wordlessly.

"Nice scary story guys but really don't try and freak us out like that." Olivia said with a shaky laugh.

Shay shook her heard furiously at Olivia, "I don't think that Amber and Matt would get so worked up over something that they were just trying to scare us with. I believe them." Shay said. I shot her a small 'thank-you' smile.

"Maybe it was just the wind." Andrea said.

"What about the things we saw?" Matt asked.

"Maybe it was just an optical illusion." Roxie replied.

"I doubt it was either of those things but let's not argue and forget that this ever happened. I'm not letting anything ruin our trip." I said with a forced smile on my face.

The others all nodded their heads in agreement with my statement and then they set to work by situating the wood in a small pile in the fire ring. Shay lit a small fire while I kept an eye on Roxie to make sure that she didn't play with the matches.

"I told you they wouldn't believe us." Matt whispered to me as we got to work.

I glared at him, "Shay believed us. Why don't you shut up and leave it alone."

"No need to get snappy with me," Matt held up his hands in surrender, "I swear, there is too much estrogen in this place!"

I giggled and punched his shoulder, "We'll find you some testosterone one of these days."

"Thank the Lord!" he said as he looked up at the sky.

-**x-x-x**-

Later, the six of us sat in a circle on the ground around the small campfire. It was becoming twilight now, the stars and moon were beginning to show themselves. I smiled, I always did love nighttime in the forest, it was always easier to look up at the stars. I slowly lowered myself to the ground on my back and began to gaze up at the stars with what I'm sure was a content smile plastered onto my face. This was all that I ever needed—my best friends, us all hanging out and just being together. There was only one thing, or rather person, who was missing. I found myself frowning slightly but I tried not to make it noticeable. I tried to erase that thought from my head, as much as I wanted him there he wasn't really part of my best friends he was just a best friend from school. He was the one person who I knew couldn't come but I still wanted him here all the same.

I was broke through my thoughts when Brie started to speak, "You know I'm surprised Lester didn't come with us, normally he pretty much begs to come with us." Brie said.

All of us nodded in agreement. Lester Harper is twenty-five years old but despite the age difference he is very close with me and my friends. He is sort of like a big brother or father figure to us at times. Lester is also a good friend of all of our families. He always made sure that he would come with us when we went on camping trips. I was surprised that our parents even let us go on the trip without him when he mentioned that he had to go out of town on business two weeks ago and wouldn't be back for a while. Now, Lester was married but none of us had ever met his wife. We knew her name was Grace and that she was extremely beautiful and that her cousin was living with Lester and herself as well but that was all that we knew about them. Even though he is several years older than most of us Lester is a 'little kid' on the inside and gets along with us really well.

All of a sudden Olivia burst into laughter. I sat up slightly and looked at her with a raised eyebrow, "Oh my god, do you guys remember when Matty and Merce had to play Mary and Joseph in the Christmas play and they had to use a little baby girl to play baby Jesus? I thought Lester and all our parents was going to pop a vein or something when they heard what Matt said!" Olivia exclaimed.

"Wow, random much, Olivia?" Brie said.

I burst into laughter as well ignoring Brie's comment. How could I not remember something like that?

"How could anyone forget?" I asked incredulously, "As soon as I brought the baby out on the stage and Roxie was saying the narrators part, Matt started going out on a rant about how the baby we were using at baby Jesus was a girl and that the real baby Jesus was a boy. Then after he pointed that fact out, we proceeded to say that since we had a girl playing baby Jesus we were basically making Jesus a transvestite or something of that nature." I laughed; I was almost in tears at this point and could hardly breathe.

Matt scowled at me, "I didn't think that the microphone that was standing beside me was on, if I would have known that almost everyone in the audience would hear what I said, I never would have said it." He said while trying to defend himself.

"Even so, why would you make remarks like that? I seriously thought that some of the older people in the audience were going to have a heart attack when you said the stuff about the transvestite." Shay pointed out.

Matt shrugged it off, "Ehh, oh well. They all have to go sometime anyways, they'll forget about it after that." He said.

I felt my jaw drop in shock and reached out to slap him on the arm. Apparently the other girls had the same idea too because we all slapped him at the same time. He let out a slight yelp and then Brie started yelling at him.

"I can not believe you said that. That was very mean Matt." Brie said sternly.

"I never thought that you were the motherly type Brie, just because you are the oldest of us all doesn't mean you have to act all motherly on us. We left that at home." Matt joked.

Brie glowered at him, "You. Suck." She said simply.

Matt shrugged and then started to argue once again with Brie about how it was rude to say that on stage.

I tried to drown out the rest of their conversation after that. I leaned back down and looked up once again at the stars. I tried to find some of the constellations but that was something I was never good at. I gave up after about five minutes of looking and then just let my thoughts wonder after that. Before long my thoughts started to roam back to what Matt and I had seen in the woods today. What kind of animal—creature—has blood red eyes? Certainly not anything human. Was it possible that whatever I had seen was not even human? I sure hoped not. I groaned quietly and then played the scene in the woods over in my head for about the millionth time at day.

I heard the fire crackle and I turned to look at the flames. There was something very moving about the fire. I felt myself focusing only on the red, orange and yellow flames dancing around the fire pit. Every once and a while a blue or white flame would appear but would quickly disappeared moments later. I had been thinking about the blurring movement in the woods when I heard a loud snack and a low menacing growl coming from the edge of the woods by our camp. That brought all my current thoughts to rest. My head snapped up into the direction to where I had heard the snapping sound and what I saw made me terrified once again. I saw a pair of piercing blood red eyes observing out campsite from the shadows of the trees. I almost shrieked in fear. It was too tall to be any type of animal. It had the silhouette of a human but since when did humans have blood red eyes? My eyes locked with the red eyes.

Roxie was sitting beside me laughing as Matt almost choked on a burnt marshmallow that not even five minutes ago he had been roasting over the fire. While still having my eyes locked with the red ones, I felt around with my hand for Roxie and tried to find some way to get her attention without getting anyone else's. I finally felt the back of Roxie's t-shirt and yanked it forcefully. Roxie came tumbling down beside me on her back. She turned to glare at me but I was too busy worrying about the eyes.

Roxie turned to me, her eyes were fuming but I didn't even notice, "What the hell do you think—" Roxie started but I quickly cut her off in my terrified state.

"Not now Roxie." I hissed quietly to her.

She was getting angrier and more confused by the second. "What the hell is your freaking problem Amber!" she whisper-yelled.

Without taking my eyes from those acute red ones I started to speak to Roxie in a low whisper, "Look out on the edge of the woods and tell me if you see anything strange." I told her.

I didn't turn around to watch as Roxie did this but as soon as I heard her soft gasp I knew that she had saw it. I watched as she pointed out towards the eyes with a shaky finger, "Re—re—red eyes." She stuttered in surprise.

I nodded briefly. I felt Roxie move forwards slightly so that she could get a better view of whatever was standing in the woods, watching them with hate filled eyes. I vaguely noticed that the eyes were narrowing at Roxie and I and were becoming a darker burgundy. What kind of eyes change colors that quick? Something was wrong—very wrong.

I heard a small shriek come from behind us and then Olivia's soft voice, "Aww shit—I cut my finger on that knife and it's bleeding pretty bad. Did anyone remember to pack the bandages?" she murmured under her breath slightly.

Before Roxie and I could even think about reacting, six blurs suddenly shot out of the forest with surprisingly amazing speed. So it was the things from earlier? All those things that Matt and I had seen earlier were all connected. Right now was not the time to think though. Roxie and I screamed bloody murder and jumped back towards the fire in surprise.

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**So, there is Chapter Four :) The funny thing is, the story about the Christmas Play, actually happened to me in real life. It was SO embarrassing! **

**Anyways, so the surprise, well it was the CLIFFHANGER I left you guys on. So tell me, what do you think was out in the woods? Who do you think it could be? Male or Female? Evil or Nice? This is your excuse to send me a review telling me what YOU think has been stalking the group! Anyways, ALERT/FAVORITE/REVIEW if you please :) Although, it would make my day if you would :)**


	6. Chapter 5: Kill Caustic

**Authors Note: _Alrighty, well first things first, I would just like to thank everyone who has taken the time to review/favorite/alert _Midnight Tryst _because quite honestly, it's SO awesome how much you guys actually like the story! I'd also like to thank those of you who took the time to check out the trailer video and the website with all the extra information. (And if you haven't yet, make sure to do so!) Now, it's time for Chapter Five :) You guys will thank me for the chapter, it will answer you're questions, but it will also make MORE questions arise. Also, note that this chapter is_ NOT _in Amber's POV, it's in a different characters POV now. :) I hope you still enjoy it!_ PLEASE REVIEW_!_**

_**- Rip.**_

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**Playlist:**

Kill Caustic by _AFI_

(_**I think this song fits this chapter perfectly**_.)

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**Chapter Five – Kill Caustic**

**_Vicente POV_**

(**NOTE****: **_**THE POINT OF VIEW HAS BEEN CHANGED FOR THIS CHAPTER. I'M INTRODUCING A NEW CHARACTER NOW! YOU GET TO SEE THE POINT OF VIEW FROM ANOTHER MORE…SINISTER…CREATURE. IT MAY BE CONFUSING, BUT GO ALONG WITH IT. ALL WILL BE EXPLAINED IN DUE TIME…**_)

I let out a small but dark chuckle into the wind as I looked at the two shocked children standing in the middle of the forest path. The children were familiar to me. They were the same children my coven has been hunting for years, not that they knew of this. But, fortunately for them, our plans always seemed to be ruined before we could make our attack. Those stupid vegetarian vampires always use that damned force field to keep us from harming the children. But luck is with us now, as the vegetarians are literally no where to be found.

A few years ago we started noticing that the children came to their little 'camp-site' at the same time every single year. Thus, we put our plan into action. The only thing that differed this year was that they decided to show up earlier than normal. Originally I wouldn't have wasted my time on six foolish children when I could have easily hunted down something else, but it was all part of a little game.

It's _his_ entire fault—_everything_. All the things that I lost were because of _him_ and his idiotic vegetarian ways and his atrocious love for human beings. _He_ doesn't seem to understand that human blood was food. _He_ tried to stop me from attacking a human and it was _he_ made me lose the most important thing in the world to me, besides my loyal coven that is. As it is, he is the one who managed to start a fun game for me by protecting those children. Now, the children were completely innocent in the matter but he didn't need to know that either.

'_It was time I got my revenge on him. Now I shall take away something of importance to him. Just like he made me suffer, and so shall he._' I thought.

Now is my chance to take action, to have my sweet vengeance. I know that it is quite possible that I could never have another chance like this ever again. Luck is on my coven's side. We will attack tonight—the smell of the girl's blood is stronger than ever. It is simply delicious. I just want to run up to her and sink my teeth into her neck. But I can control myself.

Many people had this notion in their heads that vampires had some sort of uncontrollable bloodlust. It made us dark creatures sound more helpless and as weird as it sounds, less frightening then the actual truth. Vampires had complete control over their thirst. There aren't any sort raw pains in the back of their throat, there isn't any loosing of control. No, there was only the pure, undaunted want for human blood. We _wanted_ to see humans withering in pain, screaming as we sunk our teeth into their flesh. We lived off the smell of their fear, not just their blood.

In all, humans had painted a false image of the sinister undead beings that we really are.

I shook my head, erasing all thoughts of thoughtless human notions and forced myself to focus on the task that lied just ahead of me. There were six children as usual but that _he_ is not with them this year, and his mate is not using her force fields to keep us out either. I did one more quick sweep of the area, searching for the third and final member of his coven, a young male who was probably sixteen or seventeen in age. This is turning out my favor tonight. There are six members in my coven, we will each have one to attack and there will be no fighting over the leftovers. I am to have the girl standing just fifty feet before me—the girl with the black hair, green eyes and the delectable smelling blood.

The two children who were in the woods were already terrified. Besides scanning the area for the Vegetarian Coven, I had been running around trying to scare them. I was—to put it simply—toying around with them. The girl was much more frightened of the boy. He is trying to talk himself into thinking he is insane. He wasn't seeing things like he was trying to convince himself. No, he really is seeing something of the supernatural. No amount of arguing about it to himself was going to change that.

I was ripped from my thoughts and my head snapped to attention as I heard the boy she was with speak, "Merce, like I said earlier, nothing is going to bite you."

I chuckled lightly into the wind, such a foolish and insignificant boy. How dare he think that we would let him go oh so easily?

"That's what you think…" I whispered softly but my voice carried.

The boy and girl both stiffened as they heard my voice, they turned in my direction with fear clearly showing in their eyes. I knew they could see me, even if I was hidden in the shadows. The look on the girls face was enough to prove it. She could see my blood red eyes and my pointy teeth. Before they could even blink I blended myself back into the shadows as I watched them with amusement. Humans were so comical, they would try to talk themselves into seeing things they really weren't when they really were seeing things. Monsters like myself walk around every single day with those foolish mortals yet they don't even know it, they couldn't even begin to detect us.

"Vicente, we attack tonight right?" I heard a light female voice from my coven ask.

I turned to find my lovely mate, Natalia, standing before me. She looked much like the rest of my kind in her _disfigured_ state—her deathly pale skin, blood red eyes, purple bruise-like splotches under her eyes but her luscious black hair and plump red lips made her look stunning to the human eye. She was the only one in my coven I did not use my power on. She followed me willingly while the others had no idea what they were doing. After all, I controlled them.

"Yes my dearest Natalia, we will attack them tonight. After waiting so that vegetarian and his mate are finally no where to be seen and we finally have our chance. This is perfect." I told her.

She laughed deviously, "Of course Vicente. We should prepare, the others are getting restless with anticipation to attack."

"Spencer needs to calm himself—he is much to restless. Until he and the others calm down, we will not attack. Juliet is probably the calmest and I would say that Garrett and Dylan pretty calm as well, but they both need to quit pacing around so much. It's extremely distracting." I said in an off tone.

"Yes, I will speak with them about that. Are you going to keep an eye on them?" Natalia asked.

I nodded, "Yes my dear wife, now get ready—we start in just a few hours."

She giggled darkly and then I watched as she disappeared into the forest. I was certain that this time, I—Vicente Havok—would not fail.

No, not this time around.

**-x-x-x-**

I sat back in the shadows to where my coven could not see me. They were waiting rather impatiently near the forest's edge to finally attack. I wanted to see how eager my coven was first before we could attack so that is why I stood off to the side and watched silently while my coven had no idea I was watching them.

"Is it time yet?" I heard a very intolerant Spencer ask. Spencer was tall like the other men in my coven, standing around six foot. He had short pale blonde hair and the normal blood red eyes that my kind had.

I heard my wife sigh in annoyance in response to Spencer's question, "No, not yet Spencer. We have to wait for Vicente to return and say that we can attack." She said.

"Why can't we just go now?" Spencer whined.

"Because Vicente is the coven leader and you do what he says. If he tells us to stay put and wait for him, then we will." Natalia snapped at him. I had to smile. My Natalia always put up a good fight.

Spencer had jumped back a little in surprise of Natalia's anger, "Sorry Natalia." He said.

"It's okay Spencer." Natalia said. "But I do wish he would hurry up." She muttered under her breath. She too was getting impatient, I knew it.

Both Spencer and Natalia looked up when they saw that Juliet was chuckling softly at them, "Impatient are we?" she teased.

Juliet was the essence of beauty. She had long, curly bright red hair, plump pink lips that were always pulled into a brilliant smile. She had been a pageant queen before she had been changed into a vampire. Her mother and father had both been famous supermodels and she had got an extra dose of beauty after her transformation.

I watched as Natalia rolled her eyes at Juliet.

"I can just taste their blood now…" I heard Dylan fantasize with a far away look written on his face.

Dylan was shorter than Spencer and stood at only five foot and nine inches. He looked terrifying though, he had dark brown hair and a stony face that was always plastered with a menacing frown. He was extremely strong and muscular despite his height.

I decided to make my presence known, "Snap out of it Dylan, we leave now." I hissed at him.

I removed myself from the shadows and walked towards the members of my coven, whom were growing edgy with suspense. In all I would say I looked pretty frightening, I was a towering six foot and five inches and was pretty muscular. I was dressed in my usual black attire with my midnight black hair falling over my right eye just like it always did. My hair was cut short in the back while on the sides it was slightly longer and my bangs were grown out and parted to the side so they hung over my right eye, covering it completely. My pale thin lips were pulled into a tight line while my maroon eyes were alive with excitement as I admired my coven. But quickly I noticed that someone was missing, "Where is Garrett?" I asked edgily.

A deep voice answered me, "Right here."

We all turned to fight Garrett standing in the moonlight. He was very lean standing at six foot and three inches with super short light brown hair.

"So I heard that we are going to leave now?" Garrett asked me.

I nodded at him, "Finally—after all these years we have our chance."

The other all nodded along with my in agreement and decided to make our way closer to the campsite. As we neared closer to the edge of the forest, the sound of giggling and laughter filled my ears as it floated with the wind to myself and my coven.

"Looks like we are going to be crashing a little party." Spencer chuckled lightly as he started to go observe the children.

I quickly stuck my hand out and held him back, "Wait." I said slowly.

I stepped forward towards the edge of the woods and tried to stay hidden. I wanted to make sure that the vegetarians were no where in sight before we even attempted to attack.

"Checking for those stupid purple-eyes?" I heard Dylan ask.

"Yes." I answered.

"If they are here waiting for us I swear to god—" Garrett growled.

"They aren't here." I told him quickly. The others in my coven didn't know about my extra powers nor that they had a few as well. Not even Natalia knew of this.

Garrett and the rest of the coven visibly relaxed and then began to get even more anxious for the hunt to begin. I took a small step towards the campsite and when I did I accidentally stepped on a small twig and when I did, it snapped. I mentally cursed myself as I saw the girl who was looking up at the stars stiffen slightly and then turn to look at the woods with frightened eyes. I tried to stand absolutely still and make myself not visible to her human eyes, as did the rest of my coven.

I watched as the girl's eyes scanned through the edge of the woods and then widened drastically with terror as they came to a rest on my shadow. I knew that all she could see was my eyes but that would be enough to scare any human. I held her gaze as she used her hand to rest around to feel for a second girl who was sitting behind her, when she got the attention of the second girl the second girl then proceeded to yell at the girl I was currently staring at until the black haired girl shushed the second girl. She then started talking to her in a low voice but thanks to a vampire's extra sensitive hearing I could tell that she was asking the other girl if she saw anything weird looking in the woods.

At first the second girl scoffed and rolled her eyes but scanned the woods anyways and she looked around with a bored expression splattered onto her face but as she laid her eyes upon me she started stuttering about my bright red eyes. I almost chuckled in amusement. But I stopped when I smelled it.

The rest of the coven grew restless at that point because they could smell it too. Someone had spilled their blood around the campfire because our sensitive noses picked up the delicious smell of fresh blood. I could feel my eyes turning black with pleasure.

Natalia was suddenly beside him, "Now?" she whispered.

At that moment he heard a girl say, "Aww shit—I cut my finger on that knife and it's bleeding pretty bad. Did anyone remember to pack the bandages?"

That was all I needed to hear. I nodded silently to the rest of the coven and without another word we all shot out of the woods at vampire speed in the time it would take a regular human to blink. The two girls who had been watching me jumped back in surprise and squeaked with fear. I reached them just as I heard an ear shattering scream coming from around us and the two girls.

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**So, what do you think? I had a little information about the vampires in this story. Very creepy, huh? And I borrowed the idea of Veggie Vamps from Stephenie Meyer so yeah, not my original idea, just thought I would throw that out there. Anyways, REVIEW! What do you all think of _Vicente_? And who do you think "_HE_" is?**

**Remember, REVIEW :)**


	7. Chapter 6: Grim Goodbye

**Authors Note: _Okay, so here is the next chapter. I'm posting it a little early because it's kinda short (we'll make up for that in the next chapter) and because I'm going to visit some family so I won't be able to update for a couple days so why make you wait any longer :) Thank you all for the AWESOME responses to the last chapter. I'm glad you liked the darker side of the vampire world, you'll get to see more of it in this chapter. So please continue you're awesome reviews and for anyone who doesn't review, now is your chance to shine :) Tell me what you think, even if it is just a simple smiley face. It will take five seconds and make me extremely happy! So here it is. Chapter Six._**

**_Peace,_**

**_- RiP_**

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**Playlist:**

_Untitled [Grim Goodbye]_

- by -

The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

**

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Chapter Six – Grim Goodbye

**Amber POV**

Faster than I could even blink, one of the six blurs that had shot out of the forest, was standing right in front of me. He smiled wickedly at me before he threw me backwards a few feet. It barely looked like it took him any strength at all to throw me. The man looked strong, but was it really possible to shove a human being _that _hard and make them fly backwards at that speed? I could feel myself going into a terror stricken shock.

'_What the hell is happening?'_ I asked myself. I could hear my friends asking these questions and screaming all around me. But, try as I may, I couldn't focus on them. My vision was trained on the person in front of me. From what I could tell in the dark blanket of night, he was an extremely tall man with black hair. He also had those evil blood red eyes was using them to stand above me, obviously trying to intemidate me, while looking at me with hunger in his eyes.

"Who—what are you?" I finally managed to ask.

The man inched towards me and soon he was right in my face with a menacing expression on his face. I tried to shrink back but I had no where to go. Finally he answered me, "Your worst nightmare." He cackled.

I stopped for a second and thought of the irony of the situation. It was just too uncanny, not only was this—_thing_—attacking us, but it had just said the most cliché line I _had_ ever heard. I had to be a dreaming. This couldn't actually be real.

"This has to be a dream." I mumbled. I tried to pinch myself but the man grabbed my hand in a blur of motion. He held onto my wrist tightly and I could feel it starting to lose circulation. A few traitor tears escaped my eyes, not only from pain, but from fear as well.

"You aren't dreaming, _sweetheart_." The man said in a sarcastic voice. He was clearly mocking me.

"Then who are you?" I asked softly, but the man seemed to ignore my question. Instead he loosened the death grip on a wrist slightly. I sighed in relief and shifted my eyes to look at it. There were already dark bruises forming around my wrist in the shape of a hand.

The man suddenly took my wrist and placed it under his nose. I watched in confusion as he took a deep whiff of my wrist. As he did so, his crimson eyes dilated to where the crimson pupil was barely even noticeable.

'_What is with this man?_' I wondered.

The man grinned at me, almost as if hearing my thoughts. "Why, I do think that you smell even more delectable up close and personal. I can't wait to taste you…" he trailed off with a dazed look.

"Taste me?" I asked loudly.

It took him out his dazed look and his evil grin was back in place. His pupils were still dilated and in that moment, he looked like a creature out of one of my most feared horror movies come to life. In a blur his face moved from its position just inches from my face, to my neck. Then, out of seemingly no where, I felt an extreme pain pulsing on my neck as the man sunk his sharp white teeth into my neck.

'_He is biting my neck—he is BITING my neck! What the hell, is he a VAMPIRE!?' _my mind was screaming at me.

I screamed in shear pain. The things around me like trees, bushes and the tents started to dull right before my eyes. It was getting so hard to focus. I couldn't see very well at all. And suddenly, just as quickly as the pain had started, the pressure on my neck stopped. I watched as the man flew backwards in a fast blur like before and landed somewhere in the forest with a loud crash. Two more blurs ran into the forest. I heard a ferocious growl and a strange male voice screech, "The vegetarians!"

I had to force down a giggle. If I wasn't about to go into shock I probably would have been laughing. '_Why in the heck are they screaming about vegetarians?'_ I wondered.

I noticed that all the other red eyed creatures—that I now assumed were vampires after that black haired one bit my neck and started sucking my blood out—were all flying backwards at a fast rate into the woods like the first guy. I tried to sit up but as I did suddenly I was filled with a horrible feeling of fire bursting throughout my body. I screamed out in pain and fell back towards the ground. Through all the pain, my vision started to clear up a bit. I had heard before that pain made your vision blur, but right now, I was doing the opposite. My vision sharpened through all the pain and as it did I noticed a pale blue bubble-ish thing surrounding me and all my friends.

'_What is this bubble thing? Am I going delusional?!'_ I thought as I saw the bubble.

I heard soft footsteps and I noticed that another creature was walking towards me. I cringed slightly away from it but then I noticed that she was different than the other ones. Instead of having hungry burgundy eyes she had loving indigo, almost violet, colored eyes. Her face was angular with a predator type feel but I wasn't afraid of this creature. Her expression was full of sorrow as she made her way towards me. Her lovely heart shaped face was framed with silky dark auburn hair that hung in natural looking ringlets. I was guessing by her appearance that she was probably in her early twenties. She was beautiful and not at all scary even though I was almost positive she was a vampire too. What was even weirder was that I felt like I knew her from somewhere, I just couldn't think from where.

"Oh dear—" she muttered in a soft, musical voice that was not at all chilling like the others. She suddenly turned and yelled towards the other violet eyed man who was standing over by Shay, "Lester, she's been bitten!" The woman cried.

'_Lester? What the heck is he doing here?' _I wondered. Out of nowhere the infamous Lester Harper appeared next to the beautiful women, who I was sure was a vampire also, just a nicer and kinder one. '_Is Lester a vampire too? Is that why he is so secretive about his life?'_

Lester knelt down next to me. His dark brown hair was windblown and he carelessly ran his hand through it in frustration, making it look outlandishly messy. He too had a concerned and saddened expression plastered on his face. But what shocked me the most was his eyes and his face. It was so different. His eyes the same pulsating violet color of the woman's and his face also took on a predator look.

'_That's funny,_' I thought to myself. '_I could have sworn that Lester had grey eyes and why is his face different?_'

"All the others were bitten as well." Lester said.

"Lester, what do we do?" the woman cried in grief.

"I'm so sorry Grace, but I don't think there is anything we can possibly do. The venom is already starting to spread. It's too deep. All I think that we _can_ do for them is bring them back to the house where they can finish out their change in a more comfortable place than the forest floor. Also if we have them at the house, we can make sure they are safe." Lester replied in a soothing voice. "How are we going to be able to explain this to everyone—their parents?" He muttered to himself and shook his head in distress.

I saw that the women whose name was Grace was looking at me with regret in her eyes. She had to be Lester's wife Grace, whom I had never met, "I'm so sorry young one. Please forgive us. We should have been there to protect you kids. I'm so sorry." She cried silently.

I tried to choke out of response but I psychically wasn't able to. I tried to transfer all the emotion in my eyes and she seemed to at least catch my drift—that I was thankful that she and Lester had arrived when they did. She may have thought that she and Lester were too late but, to me, they had arrived just in time.

That is when I heard my other friends start crying out in pain about fire and something burning them although it was clear there was no actual 'fire' around them but I knew exactly what they were feeling. A raw burning fire was spreading throughout my body. I let around piercing scream of torture. I felt Grace picking me up in her arms. They lessened the fire in my veins because her arms were stony and freezing.

After she had me in her arms, she slowly walked over towards two other trembling bodies. As we walked closer I could faintly make out Shay and Matt's slightly mutilated features. They were lying near each other, trembling involuntarily. I cringed when I saw the blood that was gushing from a gash in Shay's neck and a cut near her wrist. There was a similar gash on Matt's forehead and neck. Grace then picked them up in her arms without another word. I wasn't sure how she was able to hold three teenagers in her arms but I didn't question it. I was in too much pain. I felt Grace start to run because I could feel the air blowing past us in a comforting breeze. Then another course of fire burst through me and right then more than anything, _I wanted to die_.

The pain was too much to bear.

Things started to grow fuzzy. I could hardly even make out Matt and Shay's features at this point. I sighed uncomfortably as everything around me was slowly faded into a welcoming dark black stupor. I could feel myself losing consciousness fast.

The last thing I could remember before the blanket of darkness took over my senses completely was seeing Lester running behind us at a very alarming speed with Olivia and Roxie in his arms. What I also noticed was Brie was no where to be seen and that Lester had a heartbreaking grave look carved into his stunning features. But at the moment, I couldn't bring myself to think much into it. Then—black.

**-x-x-x-**

After what had surely felt like hours, I slowly came out from the black fiery oblivion had had sunken into. I felt that I was lying on a soft feather bed that I didn't remember being sat on. I tried to open my eyes but I soon found out that I couldn't. I could only hear things and the only thing I could hear was my friends screams. They had to have screaming very loud, because something in my senses told me that my friends were not in the same room as me. They weren't even near me at that moment. That scared me slightly.

I had never felt anything like what I was feeling right now, why wouldn't it stop. I wasn't sure what was happening but something told me that I was turning into a vampire. I wasn't sure why but I was almost positive that that was what was happening and I wasn't sure how I felt about that but I knew I had no choice. I was broken out of those thoughts quickly. _Another burst of pain_. I let out another deafening screech of suffering as the fire pursed deeper and deeper into my veins.

I heard someone talking through my distress, "Poor thing…she never even had a choice." I indistinctly heard Grace say. Although I couldn't see I somehow knew that she was sitting on the bed near me.

A voice answered her which I soon realized was Lester, "Most of us never do." He said grimly.

"How are the others?" she asked.

"They are right on schedule, only another day." Lester told her regrettably.

I heard Grace sigh softly, "Two days of pure torture plus another one to go. They have been through so much and they don't even have a clue what is happening to them. Thank god we got there when we did." She said.

"Yes, if you hadn't set up that force field they would have _all_ been dead." Lester said. As he spoke those words they just got fuzzier and fuzzier towards the end and I couldn't even understand them anymore.

That was the last thing I heard before slipping back into unconsciousness again.

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**So there it is, what do you think happened to Brie? And who know, what IS Lester and why is he the one saving them? Tell me what YOU think is happening :) REVIEW!!**


	8. Chapter 7: One Last Breath

**AUTHORS NOTE: _Sorry for the sort of late update but I got really into this amazing vampire book called "Evermore" :) Check it out if you will because so far, it's really, really good! Anyways, I'm pleased at all of you who are still following the story and I thank all those who have reviewed and favorited Midnight Tryst. NOTE THIS IS YET ANOTHER CHAPTER WITH A DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW. It's GRACE this time though, so I hope you enjoy getting into her head and learning more about herself and Lester as well at their other coven member. So without further babbling from myself, here is chapter seven. Enjoy and review!_**

**_Peace,_**

**_-RIP._**

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**PLAYLIST:**

**_One Last Breath_**

**by**

**- Creed -**

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**Chapter Seven – One Last Breath**

**Grace POV**

**(NOTE: YET ANOTHER NEW POINT OF VIEW. HOPE YOU ENJOY)**

We had made it to the campsite just in time—well almost. Vicente and his coven had already attacked and were drinking the poor children's blood. I had to quickly use my shield powers to create a small blue force field bubble around each of the children, Lester and myself for protection.

Regrettably we had been too late for one of the children. Lester said her name was Brie. One vampire in Vicente's coven had drained her dry and there was nothing we could do to save her. Because she had been bitten by a vampire, her body was still filled with the venom so Lester had to rip her body to shreds and then burn it. Even though her body was completely drained, and she was dead, it would be extremely dangerous if he didn't get rid of her corpse for many reasons, but I won't get into that at the moment. I had to watch in sorrow as he did this horrible task, sobbing out tears of blood in the process. I felt so bad for all the children who had lost their friend, but there had been nothing we could do for the poor girl.

"If only we had been able to detect them sooner!" I cried out in frustration to Lester as we raced back to the house with the remaining five children in our inhumanly strong arms.

"We had no idea they were here Grace, they came earlier than normal this year. We couldn't sense Vicente's coven either and for that I have no idea why. We should have known when we smelled the faint vampire scent when we were hunting last week. These other children who survived will have to finish the change. At least Brie doesn't have to go through that torture of vampirism. She can be in heaven where she _will _be happy." Lester said from behind me.

I turned as I ran and looked behind me. I could tell he was mentally kicking himself about not noticing it earlier. I was too. If we had just arrived a few minutes sooner we could have stopped them from this horrible torture they were currently enduring and maybe stopped the girl from dying. For the others who had survived, they weren't anymore lucky. They were being changed into the living dead—a vampire. From experience, I know that being changed into a vampire is one of the most painful things anyone can ever experience. The venom from the vampire has to make it throughout your whole body, stopping your blood flow slowly and then it makes it attack on your organs stopping them all before it finally makes its way to your heart. Once your heart finally stops then the transformation is complete. All the while the venom makes it way through your body your skin hardens and perfects itself while your bones before stronger than steel and your senses heighten to great lengths and your body becomes inhumanly gorgeous and seductively alluring.

I shuttered as I remembered going through my awful change. It was my most horrible experience and after I had been innocently attack by a vampire and changed into one myself I had promised that I would never again kill an innocent human or change a human myself. Lucky for me soon after my change I ran into Lester who showed me that there was another way to survive other than drinking humans. After that I had forced myself to stay away from human blood and drink only animal's blood which was why my eyes were a violet color. And so far I had kept my promise. I had never once tasted human blood and I never planned on ever tasting it. That is why I was mentally cursing myself for not saving these humans in time. Just like myself, they were attacked and changed against their will. If they blamed Lester or myself for what they were going through I would understand. It is mostly our fault; we should have paid better attention.

"Grace Aricia Harper!" Lester said suddenly.

"What?" I called out quietly. He knew that I had been thinking, he has known me long enough that even though he isn't a mind reader he can still know what I'm thinking—especially when I have on a certain face.

"It is not our fault so don't blame yourself. There was nothing we could do. She will be in heaven now and can be happy while not doomed to being immortal and being a vampire for the rest of her existence like her friends will be. Please stop blaming yourself. It was better for her. As for the other children they will not blame us, if anything we saved them from their death. And besides, if it is anyone's fault it is mine. I should have gone with them instead of going further north for hunting. I knew they were going camping but I didn't think that Vicente knew that." He said in a softer voice.

I sighed, "That's not true—" I started but then cut off as my voice trailed to a whisper.

I shook my head lightly and then he left me alone to my thoughts. He knew I wasn't ready to talk about it just yet. We were quiet the rest of the run and the whole time I was having an inward battle with myself on whether it was my fault these kids were changing against their will or not. Somewhere in my heart I knew it was not my fault but my mind didn't want to agree with my heart. My mind said that everything was my fault and these kids were suffering because of me.

I tried pushing the thoughts away and tried thinking about something else. Soon I was thinking about which kids would go into which bedrooms. Soon I was giddy with the chance of getting to decorate the children's new rooms. I think Lester notice my mood change because as soon as he saw the smile on my face he started shaking his head and laughing slightly. He knew what that face meant, redecorating the house!

Before I knew it we had reached our house. When our small three vampire coven had first moved to Shiloh five years ago, Lester, Jeremy and myself had went into the woods to hunt and after we had fed and were starting on our way back to town to look around for some type of shelter that we could later turn into a small house, we stumbled across a beautiful Victorian three story house in the woods. It looked like it was designed sometime during the 1830's or 40's.

By the smell of things the last human had been in it roughly around five to ten years before we had came across it. Everything in it was covered with white bed sheets and covered with dust. I couldn't understand why someone would just up and leave their beautiful house but as we explored I started to pay closer attentions to the smells in the house, they didn't smell human but yet they weren't a vampire's smell either. I knew exactly what had been here before us—I wasn't sure what shapeshifters would have been doing in our area but I wasn't sure I wanted to find out either.

Most of the furniture and supplies that weren't made of something durable, like steel, were falling apart or broken. It made me wonder what had went on in this house before we arrived. The house was three stories tall with a basement, much too big for our three vampire coven but I fell in love with the house instantly. Jeremy and Lester just didn't have it in them to tell me no.

The house was located on the side of one of the gorgeous mountains in Tennessee. It had a beautiful view of the forest and the mountains surrounding it. Luckily for us, some of the best hunting spots were located in the woods surrounding the house. There were plenty of deer, grizzlies, mountain lions, black bears, fox, lynxes, wild boars, wolves and plenty of other animals that we could feed off of.

The house had seven bedrooms with four bathrooms not that we needed the bathroom for anything other than taking a shower after hunting. There was a spacious living room on bottom floor that had a wide-screened TV and a fireplace. The downstairs had a dining room, Lester's privet study, a fully equipped kitchen with granite counter tops (even though we didn't have any use for it), and of course the living room. The second floor had four bedrooms, with only one occupied at the moment and that was Jeremy's, only one of the bedrooms had its own bathroom and that was the biggest one that was currently empty, there was a separate bathroom, as well as balcony that led off of one of the bedrooms. The third floor had three bedrooms, a media room and a small bathroom.

In the house, we really didn't need to have bathrooms. Since vampires couldn't digest human food our bodies didn't need to get rid of wastes like humans did, which made most bathrooms pointless. We were unable to sweat either and our hair and bodies were always in perfect condition, so the only time that we had to shower was if we got dirty while hunting.

The exterior of the house was just as beautiful. The outside of the house was painted a brown color on the first floor while the two upper levels were painted white. The porch was painted the same brown color as the first floor with some white painted designs on it. The roof was made of brown shingles.

It was obvious that whoever had built the house had planned on staying there for a long time but somehow had a change of plans or something. There was no way someone would build a house like that just to live in it a couple years and then move away.

I had fallen in love with it the moment I saw it. It was secluded in the middle of the woods so that is why no one even knew it existed. I had begged Lester and the third member of our coven, Jeremy Harper, until they finally told me when could keep the house. I was ecstatic about decorating it. After we had taken over the house we used the basement as a storage room for all the old furniture in the house. I had decorated the whole house in a traditional or Victorian style like the design of the house.

I had even taken the liberty of decorating the extra five bedrooms in the house although we didn't need them. Now, I am thankful that I did.

"We're home." Lester announced, bringing me from my thoughts, as we stepped onto the small driveway that led to the house.

I looked up to see Jeremy coming out of the house. Jeremy was only sixteen when we found him. He had been in a horrible car accident and had no chance of surviving it. He asked us to change him after he found out what we were and Lester agreed to change him, not having it in him to let the boy die. After Jeremy's change finished he became part of our vegetarian coven. When we moved to new towns he posed as Lester and mine's adopted son and normally went to school but this time when we moved to Shiloh he had not gone to school at all. He had something about wanting to take a break from school for a while and Lester agreed and said he could stay home instead of going to school.

Jeremy was tall, standing around five foot and ten inches with short blond hair and of course the strange violet eyes for _our_ kind. He was lanky but still very strong.

As soon as he saw the children in our hands, he frowned. "What happened?" he asked as he looked at the three kids in my arms.

"Vicente attacked them." Lester said with a small hiss.

Jeremy looked livid, "He attacked five innocent children and then left them to turn into savages?!" he asked in outrage.

I nodded, "We got there in time to stop them before they killed all of them, but—" I cut off.

"But what?" Jeremy asked.

"One of them, her name was Brie, was already drained dry before we were able to stop them. We had to burry her. There was nothing we could do." Lester said sadly.

A low growl sounded from Jeremy's chest, "How could they do something so idiotic!" he exclaimed in anger.

"They are regular vampires, they don't know anything else and they are certainly not civilized like us, Jeremy. They wanted their blood." Lester told him calmly.

Jeremy rubbed him temple, "I know. At least the other five are okay. Do you need help Grace?" he asked me, I had three children in my arms and even though I had unbelievable strength I felt like holding the three of them was too much.

"Sure, can carry the blonde." I instructed since she would be the easiest for him to get to.

He walked over to me and I watched as his eyes grew wide as he looked at the blonde headed girl in my arms. He took her slowly from my arms and cradled her carefully. She almost relaxed to his touch. Almost. She was still in pain but in his arms we seemed to visibly relax. Jeremy watched her with a goofy smile on his face. "She's beautiful." Jeremy whispered. "What's her name Lester?"

Lester knew all of the children. He had befriended each and every one of them as well as their families in order to help protect them from Vicente and his coven of psychotic vampires.

"Her name is Sharayah Anderson but she prefers to be called Shay." Lester said.

"Shay…" Jeremy muttered as he brushed some of the hair from her face.

Lester and I exchanged a knowing glance, "I think someone is in love." I muttered jokingly but seriously at the same time. Jeremy had never looked at anyone that way.

Jeremy looked up at me with another silly grin, "I think I might be." He mumbled.

I giggled at his giddy state.

"What rooms should we put them in?" Jeremy asked without taking his eyes off of the girl cradled in his arms.

"I don't know. Why don't you let Grace choose?" Lester said with a knowing smirk in my direction.

I grinned. I already planned out which child would stay where in my head. From the seven bedrooms in the house Lester and I shared the master bedroom on the third floor. We were married so of course we shared a room. Jeremy had a room on the second floor but other than that, none of the other bedrooms were occupied although they were fully furnished.

"Jeremy you can take Shay up to the light mint-green bedroom on the second floor." I said with a smirk. The mint-green bedroom on the second floor was right next to his room and I knew it would make him happy that she had a room near his.

"Thank you Grace." He said with a small smile as he disappeared into the house.

"I'm going to take the black haired girl in my arms to the circular room on the second floor while the boy is going to have the brown room on the third floor. The light brown haired girl in your arms can have the green room on the third floor while the short dark haired girl can have the black room on the second floor." I told Lester.

He nodded, "Alright." And then we both took them inside.

After Lester, Jeremy and I had put them each in their respected rooms and made sure they were as comfortable as possible for the time being. We spent the remainder of the time going from room to room checking on the five children.

-**x-x-x**-

It was a two days later and I was on the second floor with the black haired girl's room—who I now knew was named Amber—when she started to wake up a bit. She wasn't unconscious anymore but I knew that the change wasn't over yet. Her heart was still beating and it had been two days since the change had started. Unfortunately for her she had one more day before her change would be completed and the last day was always the worst. She let out another scream and wriggled slightly in pain on the bed I had set her on two days ago.

The change was starting to take a physical effect on her now. I watched as her once tan skin hardened and became a deathly pale color. I also knew that beneath her closed eyelids, which were beginning to take on a pale lavender color, her once sparkling green eyes were slowly turning that vicious burgundy color of newborns.

"Poor thing…she never even had a choice." I said softly while smoothing the girls black hair back from her face.

"Most of us never do." Lester said from where he was standing behind me.

I turned to find my husband looking at me with sad eyes; he too had been changed against his will. He knew how I felt about humans being changed into vampires.

"How are the others?" I asked him, changing the subject.

"They are right on schedule, only one more day and then they should be woken up." He told me.

I sighed, "Two days of pure torture plus another one to go. They have been through so much and they don't even have a clue what is happening to them. Thank god we got there when we did." I said.

"Yes, if you hadn't set up that force field they would have all been dead." Lester said.

I heard the girl moan and then she slipped back into unconsciousness. I wonder if she had heard our conversation. I turned back to my husband.

"We would have lost a lot more than just one if we hadn't got there in time." I said. "Where is Jeremy?" I asked.

Lester nodded, "In with the Shay again." He said with a smile.

Of course, I should have known. He hasn't left her side since we had put her in her room while Lester and I took turns helping the other four children whom I now knew as Amber, Roxie, Matt and Olivia.

"We should check on the others." He said.

I agreed and got up from where I had been sitting on the edge of the bed. I pushed Amber's slightly sweaty hair from her face, "I'm sorry." I murmured to her.

I got up from the bed and went to the hallway where Lester stood watching me. He pulled me into a reassuring hug and kissed me on the forehead, "Everything will turn out okay." He said. "I promise."

I pulled away from his embrace and then we spilt up, Lester taking the third floor again while I went to check on Roxie, whose room was also on the second floor, dry sobbing as I went.

-**x-x-x**-

Hours later I found myself once again with Amber and I quickly noted that she was almost finished with her change. Her heartbeat was weakening to where it was hardly even beating at all. I knew that the change was almost finished for this girl.

Amber was twisting and turning around in the bed, most likely trying to get away from the awful pain of everything but the twisting and turning was just going to make the pain worse for her but she had no idea about that. And she was in too much pain to even think about being reasonable. This was the worst part of the change. It would be over soon though and she would be waking.

Only Shay, the blonde headed girl that Jeremy was so infatuated with, had woken up so far and Amber would be the second to awake. Then we would have to patiently wait while the other three finished their change. When Shay had woken up she had no idea what had happened the last day or so of her 'life', everything was very much disoriented for her. She could remember going to the campsite but after that everything else was a blur. She was now with Lester, and of course Jeremy who refused to leave her side. She had already taken a liking to him and I could tell that Jeremy was falling in love with her just by the way he was looking at her. Shay had dry sobbed on Jeremy when Lester told her about what happened to Brie. It was saddening because I would have to go through four more reactions like that when we told the others about what happened to Brie.

I was brought from my thoughts from another bloodcurdling scream of pain from the girl in front of me. I listened as her heartbeat got fainter and fainter until it stopped all together. The change was complete. She was now a newborn vampire. Her screams ceased and she fell into an uneasy silence.

After I waited for about ten crucial minutes, the newborn vampire moaned softly and slowly she opened her eyes and I saw the beautiful but terrifying ruby red eyes of a newborn vampire. When vampires are first born their eyes are red because of the blood they have in their bodies from being human. After a year or so, if they do not drink human blood and drink animal blood instead, their eyes will become diluted and turn purple instead of red. And then of course after their first year was up they could let their eyes change back to their natural color when they were not in their predator mode, but not many vampires actually used that feature that we all had. Lester was one of the only vampires I knew who used it on a regular basis. When he was around the children before their change he used to always disguise his eyes, making it look like he had his human grey eyes back.

Hopefully these children would choose our way of life instead that of the vampires that killed them.

I watched as Amber slowly looked around the room in confusion and take in the room around her. I hoped that she liked the way that I had decorated her room, if not we could always change it. Her eyes moved around the room and then looked town at her blood splattered clothes that she had worn before she had been changed. I could tell by the look on her face that they were uncomfortable. She had a new body now and all her clothes she had had previously would not fit as they did before. She looked up from her clothes and her eyes finally settled on me. Her eyes widened with recognition and she offered me a small smile.

"Hello." She said shyly in a harmonious voice.

"Hello darling." I told her in a pleasant voice while giving her a soft smile.

"What am I doing here? How did I get here? Oh my god! What happened to my friends!?" she screamed in fear.

I laughed at her expression; it was one of fear for her friends. I smiled and then went on to tell her about our life.

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**That's all for now folks, please review :) Don't be Shy now! What do you think of THESE type of vampires now? You'll be learning more about them in other chapters. It sucks having to take Brie out, I hate character death, but her death will play a MAJOR role in this story though. But who knows, maybe you will see more of her in the future...-GASP- Also their was a SMALL, TINY hint of something else that will play an even BIGGER role in this story in this chapter, did anyone catch it? Review and tell me what YOU think. **


	9. Chapter 8: Bring Me To Life

**Authors Note:_I'm back everyone and with a brand new, LONG chapter! You get to learn more about MT's Vamps and about the Harper Coven as well in this chapter. Anyways, thank you all so very much for a awesome reviews from the last chapter. I got a ton of hits for the last post and so I thank you all who are reading this--even if your one of those silent readers. So this chapter is long but I hope you all enjoy it. There's a ton of info but I hope you all still enjoy it. Now all you have to do is review and maybe you'll get a faster update. Again, if you have any thoughts or ideas for future chapters--I'm open to ideas. I have until Chapter Twenty mapped out but I love listening to others ideas as well. :) You will be credited as well. Anyways, I'll stop rambling. One with it :)_**

**_- RiP._**

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**PLAYLIST:**

**_Bring Me To Life_**

**by**

**Evanescence**

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**Chapter Eight – Bring Me To Life**

**Amber POV**

Just when I thought that the pain and that fire that was pulsing in me could not get any worse, it tripled to an almost unbearable magnitude. It hurt so much that I was having convulsions from the severe pain that I was in. I was twisting and turning on the soft bed to try and get away from the pain but nothing I could do would make the pain go away. I was probably making the pain worse by moving around but at that moment I really did not care.

Suddenly, as if it was a gift from god in heaven, the pain just stopped and I felt myself coming to an uneasy peace. The first thing I noticed after the pain went away was little whispers filling my head, sounding as if there were seven or more people in the room talking at once about completely random things. But the thing was, I just couldn't make out what they were saying, it was as if everything was muffled by a glass wall or something of that sort.

After lying still for a moment, trying to rid the voices from my head with no use, I opened my eyes to look around me. I was able to ignore the voices as I took everything in. Everything was in a striking icy clear focus. I was confused, I did not recognize anything. All I knew was that I defiantly was not in the woods anymore. From where I lay, staring up at the ceiling, which I noted was a light cream color with a thick white molding surrounding it, there right in the center of it was a small gold and white chandelier. I felt my eyes widened as I looked around. I was in a circular shaped large and lavish bedroom with beige colored walls. There were two small windows in the room with soft silk white curtains over them. Right across from me was a small sitting area with two stark white chairs and a light green couch. I was on a comfortable king sized dark brown framed bed with cream and light green silk sheets. As I was looking down at the sheets I looked down at my own clothes. I was still in the same clothes that I had been in the first day we had gone camping. They were blood splattered and torn and extremely uncomfortable. They didn't fit right for some odd reason.

The strangest thing though, was that there was no one else in the room besides myself and a beautiful woman with strikingly bright indigo colored eyes. I looked up at her and met her bright gaze. She was a complete mess—her hair was disheveled, her clothes were ripped, there was dried blood splattered onto them and she was starting to get purple bruise-like bags beneath her eyes that were just a few shades darker than her eye color but none of that changed that fact that she was extraordinarily beautiful. As I looked at her the name 'Grace' registered in my brain as if I knew her.

And as soon as I thought that small sentence, everything came back to me in a rush. The red eyes in the woods, the blurs, Shay believing me, sitting at the campfire when Olivia cut her finger, the red eyed vampires attacking us, the man throwing me backwards, him biting me, the bubble that surrounded me, Grace and _Lester_ saving us and then carrying us, not seeing Brie—everything, it all came back.

The only thing that was different was Grace's face didn't hold the hardness that it had when I had first seen her. Now her face was serene, yet her eyes were slightly troubled. '_I wonder why that is?_' I thought to myself.

"Hello." I told Grace shyly after I was able to sort through all the blurry memories that were currently wracking my brain. As I spoke to her though, I could feel my eyes widen slightly at my voice, had it always been so melodious?

To my surprise, the beautiful eyed woman offered me a warm smile, "Hello darling." She said pleasantly.

"What am I doing here? How did I get here? Oh my god! What happened to my friends?" I asked in terror. I didn't see any of my friends as I looked around.

The woman laughed, "My name is Grace Harper. As you have probably already figured out by now, I am Lester's wife. As for where you are, you and your friends are at our house. And why you are here—well, we had to take you somewhere away from those bloodthirsty vampires that attacked you." She told me.

I was confused, "But aren't you a vampire too? You look like the vampires that came from the woods." I told her.

"Yes I am a vampire." Grace answered.

"Then why did you save us? Why aren't you trying to kill me yourself? I mean you _are _a vampire and vampires do drink blood. Why are your eyes different then the other vampires? And you never told me where my friends are!" I said at a very surprising speed.

"You ask so many questions." Grace said with a giggle. "But that is okay. I am a special type of vampire—I don't like to drink human blood because like you I was changed against my will. After that I promised that I would never drink human blood. Lester, and our _son_ Jeremy Harper are the same way as I am. Instead of drinking human blood we only drink blood from animals. That is why our eyes are violet instead of red like the human drinking vampires that attacked you. If you drink animal blood like us you will get violet eyes too in about a year after all your human blood is out of your system. Of course, after you hit your one year mark you will gain the ability to change your eye color back to you human eye color, which is why Lester's eyes were always grey to you. Around us, his eyes are always purple." She explained. "And Lester and I saved you because you are all so young and you don't deserve to die like so many of you do every single day. Plus I think Lester has taken a liking to you and your friends."

"Why didn't Lester tell us he was a—a vampire." I stuttered slightly.

Grace smiled sadly, "We are not supposed to let humans know what we are. It's sort of an unspoken rule that humans aren't the know about the supernatural that walk the earth with them. It would cause mass hysteria and throw everything off balance if they knew. Think back to the witch trials and vampire hunts of the 1600's. It was a mess." She said. "Of course, Lester wanted to tell you but Jeremy and I discourage him, and explained to him that it was best if you didn't know that he was a vampire. But now, given the circumstance, we figured it was best to tell you."

"And my friends?" I asked impatiently. I had asked three times where my friends were and I still had yet to get an answer from Grace.

I noticed her eyes turned sad, "Your friend Shay is already awake from her transformation and is currently with Lester and Jeremy. Lester is trying to figure out how she can not be thirsty. Your other three friends are still undergoing the transformation. You are the second to awaken." She told me.

I was confused. What transformation? But something else just didn't sound right, "What do you mean by three, if I'm the second to awake then what happened to my sixth friend?" I asked.

At this I noticed a small spark of sadness appear in her eyes. Grace looked completely reluctant to tell me but she took in a deep breath of air and spoke in a heartbroken voice, "She—we—we weren't able to get there in time to stop them from killing her. There wasn't anything we could do." She said sadly, looking down at her feet once she finished almost as if she was trying to avoid my reaction.

Everything in my world came to a forceful standstill and an awkward silence hung in the air once she finished. I felt my heart crumble to pieces at her words and it left like everything was closing in on me at once. It was too much—too much to handle at once. I could barely breathe as the weight of everything crushed down upon my shoulders. I shook my head forcefully, almost as if I could make her words go away—as if shaking my head and refusing to believe her words would make then less true.

"You mean th—they died?" I asked. I could feel persistent tears building up behind my eyes, making them irritated. I started to panic when the tears wouldn't fall down my cheeks, no matter how much I wanted them too. Crying always made me feel better—it gave me some sort of release that no amount of screaming and smashing things could do.

"I'm so sorry, we tried but there wasn't anything we could do." Grace told me, interrupting my panic.

"Which friend?" I asked after a few moments. I had noticed during her little speech Grace had used the word, 'her', which automatically out ruled Matt.

She took another deep breath before mumbling out, "Lester said her name was Brie."

At this I lost it, I lost it completely. Loosing any of my friends was hard but Brie—she was my sister in all ways possible. I wrung my hands together a few times and stared at my lap before my shoulder started to shake, my lip quivered and strangled sobbing noises came from my mouth in short gasps. Finally after what seemed like ages I felt a gooey wetness flowing down my cheeks and simultaneously I heard Grace gasp loudly and stare at me in wonder. I looked up at her and saw that her eyes were wide and her jaw was dropped.

'_Why is she shocked that I am sobbing over the fact that my best friend is dead?_' I wondered.

Grace stuttered for a few moments, her jaw still hanging open, before she finally was able to lift a shaky finger and pointed to my face. Curiously I wiped my fingers across the tears that were now flowing freely down my face but gasped slightly when I noticed that my tears didn't feel right—they didn't feel like water at all. I pulled my hand away in surprise and was shocked by what I saw.

Red blood was staining my fingertips were my tears should have been.

"I'm—I'm crying b—blood!" I exclaimed loudly, shocked by seeing the blood more than being disgusted by it like I most likely should have been.

Grace's jaw snapped shut at my statement and her eyes softened, "I've heard of this happening before but I've never actually experienced it, besides yesterday that is…" she mumbled, more to herself than me. "Only vampires in extreme distress have this happen to them and usually they are older, more experienced vampires."

"What do you mean by that?" I exclaimed. "Crying blood is _not _under any circumstances normal!"

"It is for vampires." Grace replied.

I froze at her words once more. It seemed like everything that I had heard in the past ten minutes since I had woken up was a bit of a shock. I really needed some time to just think and digest everything that Grace had just told me but it looked like I wasn't going to be getting any of that anytime soon.

"What a minute, are we—are we vampires now?!" I asked Grace after a few moments of rushing through my thoughts.

"I thought that you had been able to figure it out by now, but I guess I was wrong." She chuckled slightly, "But to answer your question, yes you are a vampire."

"How?" I managed to speak out.

"Because those other vampires bit you and all of your friends, and since they were not able to suck all of your blood out thanks to Lester and myself, the venom from the other vampires system flowed through your blood system and the venom finally changed you into one of us since you were still alive. That was the '_fire_' you felt while undergoing the change. You are now a vampire." Grace quietly explained to me in a caring voice.

I nodded mutely, not trusting myself to speak right away. After a few moments of awkward silence on both parts, I finally gathered the courage to reply. "Well then what happened to Brie? You said you and Lester were able to stop them before they sucked all of our blood out so why isn't she a vampire?" I asked.

Grace's eyes glazed over slightly with sadness, "That is true but we weren't able to stop the vampire that attacked Brie from killing her in time. She was already completely dead before we stopped them. The vampire who killed Brie killed her before drinking her blood and they drank it quickly. She had no chances of survival. I'm so sorry." Grace explained.

"Oh," was all I could say. I tried not to dwell on the fact that one of my closest friends were now dead and decided to ask more questions about being a '_vampire_'. "Well I have another question. You said Lester was asking my friend about why she wasn't thirsty, what do you mean by that?" I asked out of pure curiosity.

"Well when newborn vampires awake from their transformation they need to feed right away. They are supposed to have an unquenchable thirst and they automatically crave blood but neither you are your friend seem to be craving blood yet. Your eyes are still a light red instead of turning blacker from hunger like they should be. That's how we all are but you are your friends are different." She said. "Of course after you feed a few times, you thirst stops and you feed just to keep up your strength. Besides that, most vampires are very demented creatures and get some kind of shear pleasure out of killing and toying with their food. Fear is something that we feed off of as well, blood can keep up strong but fear is what really _makes _us what we are. But not all of us live like that. Basically, there are three times of vampires. Fear frenzied vampires—like your attacker that feed from humans, civilized vampires—like our coven that feed from animals, and lastly Nomad vampires—vampires who wander and keep to themselves for the most part and feed off of both humans and animals."

"How do you know if you are thirsty or not?" I asked curiously. Some of the things she had said had disturbed me, but I decided to let that go for now. It wasn't something that I wanted to think about.

"Does your throat tickle or feel uncomfortable?" she asked me.

I shook my head, "My throat feels completely normal, just like it did when I wasn't hungry or thirsty for human food when I was human." I told her. "Why do you think that is?"

"That is what we aren't exactly sure of. Lester and Jeremy are trying to figure that out. It isn't impossibly for vampires to not feel the thirst but it defiantly isn't normal either." Grace said.

"Oh, okay." I answered.

Grace smiled at me, "Your name is Amber, correct?"

"Yes, my name is Amber Mason." I said softly.

'_Amber_.' She murmured slightly but it sounded muffled, like the voices I was hearing when I first awoke. "That is a beautiful name, dear. Why don't you come with me now? We can go find Lester, Jeremy and Shay and then hopefully we can find out why neither of you are thirsty. We can also test you for your power as well." Grace said happily as she almost drug me out of the bed in her excitement.

"My what?" I asked clearly confused.

Grace just laughed and then went on to explain, "Your power, every vampire was once human and when they are changed they usually get some sort of extra power, almost like an extra sense. My power is to block out any vampires power and use it against them. That is why I could block out those other vampires and put a force field around you and your friends to prevent them from getting to you."

As we started to walk away from the circular part of the bedroom I realized that the bedroom I was in extended into a larger room with the same color of walls and flooring that had a small TV, couch, arm chair and a bathroom and closet.

I was curious about something though, "What are Lester and Jeremy's powers?" I asked inquiringly.

"Lester has the power to mooch off of other vampires powers and use them at will. It could be extremely dangerous if it was in the hands of the wrong vampire but Lester would never use his power to harm anyone. Sometimes I find him mooching off my power or Jeremy's power. Now Jeremy's power on the other hand is pretty rare and special as well. He has the power to create an exact replica of anything living or anything inanimate as long as it already exists or has in the near past. He wouldn't be able to create a replica of like George Washington or anything but he could create a replica of someone who has recently past." Grace explained.

"Wow, who would have thought that Lester was a power moocher." I mused lightly with a smirk plastered on my face. "I just hope my power is as cool as your guy's"

Grace frowned slightly, "Not everyone has a special ability, some people will carry over a trait like strength, speed, precision, ignorance, beauty, and the list goes on and on and on. There is always a possibility that you will have a trait like that instead of a special ability." She said. I nodded in understanding and then Grace spoke again, "Although I have a feeling you will have a special ability." She winked at me.

"Do you know if Shay has any powers yet?" I asked.

"Shay hasn't been awake for more than a few hours but we think her power is to interpret and alter emotions. Basically she could take a sad person and send a wave of happiness to them to make them feel better and she will always know what anyone's emotions are. Meaning that all she has to do is look at a person and she will know how they are feeling because according to her she sees with little fuzzy haze around a person that will let her know what they are feeling. It seems like you can't hide your true feelings from her." Grace explained.

"Shay was always good at knowing how a person was feeling, so I guess it isn't much of a surprise that that would be her trait." I laughed as I thought about it. I voiced another question, "I have another question about powers: do you think it has anything to do with the fact that I am hearing muffled voices all around me even though nobody but me and you are standing here?" I asked.

Grace's eyes widened, "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well, when I first awoke from my change I thought that there were several people in the room because they were all talking about random things at once but I couldn't make out exactly what they were talking about because everything was muffled.

After a few moments of silence, Grace most likely going over and analyzing what I said over in her brain, she spoke, "Amber, I'm not sure exactly what to tell you." She said with a sigh. "I have no idea why you are hearing voices but maybe Lester will know why." After she finished it sounded like she added a muffled, '_I knew she was special,_' but I couldn't be sure.

"So being immortal, does that mean we live forever?" I asked Grace, changing the subject once more.

She nodded, "Yes since you will always keep the appearance that you have now—you will always be the same age you were as you were when you change. So if you were changed at twenty, you could really have lived thousands of years but you will always look twenty, no matter how long you live." She told me.

"How old are you?" I couldn't help but ask.

"One hundred and five." She answered with a grin.

I felt my jaw drop, "Are you serious?!" I asked.

"Lester is two hundred years old exactly." Grace giggled.

My jaw that had already been hanging open from Grace's age was now open wider at that thought of Lester's age, "He doesn't look a day over twenty-five." I said sarcastically with a laugh.

"That's because he was changed when twenty-five years old." Grace told me.

"How old were you?" I asked.

"I was only twenty-two years old when I was bitten." She said sadly.

"I'm still fifteen." I muttered sadly under my breath. "I will be fifteen years old for the rest of my entire existence."

Grace smiled sadly at me, "With your vampire body you could pass for a lot older than fifteen. You could probably pass for an eighteen year old if you really wanted too." She reassured me.

I laughed a bitter laugh, "Do you want to know what's really funny?" I asked.

"What?" Grace replied.

"It's Monday night, right?" I asked.

Grace nodded, "Yes."

"What time?" I asked her.

She shrugged, "Last time I checked it was almost 5pm."

I spoke my next words quietly, but I'm sure that she heard anyways, "Today is my sixteenth birthday—September 24th, 1991 at 5:06pm." I mumbled out sadly.

"Then technically you'll be sixteen for the rest of your existence." Grace told me. I gave her a blank look and she continued, "Technically you wouldn't stop aging until the change was complete. Your change finished about twenty minutes ago, now. I don't think it would really matter if you were a couple minutes off. To me, you are sixteen." she said, giving me a smile. "Happy birthday by the way."

"Thanks," I replied with a grin.

That was when I noticed that we had gotten to the end of the hallway we had previously been walking down. The hallway was very light and airy compared to my room. It had a light colored wood floor and creamy white walls with various pictures hung up on the wall. We were now standing at the top of cream carpeted stairs that led down to a larger hallway.

And that wasn't even the whole house. Grace told me that on the first floor there was a fully equipped kitchen even though they didn't really use it since they were vampires plus dining room, living room, a privet study that belonged to Lester and a library filled with all sorts of books that I could read anytime if I was interested. On the second floor there were four bedrooms including the one that I had been in and a bathroom. She also informed me that there was yet another story on the house that had three bedrooms and a media room plus another bathroom. She probably mentioned more rooms but I was too amazed to catch all of them. I didn't understand how nobody had found this house in the woods until them.

"Why do you need such a big house if you only have three people in your coven?" I asked Grace when she finished showing me the second and first floor living rooms and telling me about the rest of the house.

"We found this house when we first moved and I fell in love with it the moment I first saw it. Sure it was huge but for some reason I knew that it would come in handy some day. We defiantly needed the extra space the last few days, with five new vampires staying in the house. Lester and Jeremy actually said that they were thankful that we found this house." Grace said. "You kids are welcome here for as long as you want. We were actually wondering if you wanted to join our coven and you can stay here with us and learn to feed off of the blood of animals. Shay has already accepted our invitation and now we want to ask the rest of you." She told me.

"Of course I want to. I could never hurt a human purposely." I told her.

She smiled, "Good."

We descended down the stairs and entered the first floor living room and then she took me out on the front porch were I saw three people standing outside talking. One I recognized immediately to be Lester, another was a tall blond haired boy with violet eyes who I figured was Jeremy and the last was a short, pale skinned with long silky blonde hair and ruby red eyes. I knew that it was Shay the moment I saw her.

"Hello, Amber is awake I see." Lester said with a smile directed at me.

Shay turned around and even though she had red eyes I would have known it was Shay anywhere. Her facial features were the same except for more defined than before.

She was at my side in an instant and tackling me in a hug that would have probably crushed me to death if I was still human, "Amber!" she squealed with happiness as she hugged me. Her voice had change, it almost sounded like she was singing instead of just talking. "Oh my god, we are vampires and guess what? I have a special ability and we are going to join Lester's coven and live in this completely gorgeous house with Lester, Jeremy and Grace and we—" she said while talking so fast even as a vampire I was having difficultly understanding her.

Behind us I saw Grace and Lester shaking with silent laughter while Jeremy was watching her with an amused expression and love in his eyes. Did he love her?

'_Did I miss something?_' I wondered.

I tried to get Shay to calm down but she was still babbling along about being vampires, "I know Shay!" I laughed loudly, shutting her up for a moment but I could understand why, my laugh sounded like ringing bells. "Grace told me everything about us being a vampire and everything about what being a vampire means and she explained a lot of things too me. She also told me how we can stay here." I said as I hugged her back, trying to ignore the strange change in my voice.

Shay suddenly stopped jumping, "Did you hear about—" her voice broke off before she got Brie's name out.

"Yeah…" I said quietly.

She hugged me, "I can't believe that those jerks killed her." She mumbled.

"I know…" I replied and I hugged my best friend tightly.

Lester walked up to us then as we pulled apart from our hug. Lester turned to me and then asked, "Amber do you feel an itchiness in the back of your throat? Are you thirsty for blood?" he asked.

I thought a moment again like I had earlier with Grace and shook my head no. I had no feeling to attack or suck the blood out of anything. I could smell something that sticky sweet and it smell delicious but I had no involuntary desire to attack it.

"Shay isn't thirsty either. We thought that bringing you outside would make you smell the animals around you and make you want to attack but no such luck. It doesn't make sense; newborn vampires have to feed right away. There has only been a few cases over the past two thousand years in which vampires were immune to blood all together and now we have two vampires who are." Lester said in frustration.

"I do smell something that is very sweet and it smells so good but I don't feel like I _have_ to have it. I mean I can smell it all around me and if I wanted to I would try and go after it but it isn't anything that is overpowering me or anything." I explained to Lester.

"But you two are newborns; you are supposed to be in a blood wanting frenzy by now!" Jeremy said as he spoke for first time since I had come outside.

"Well there is one theory." Grace said suddenly after being quiet for a while.

"Which is what?" Lester asked his wife.

She answered almost immediately while looking at me and Shay intently, "Well I have heard in some cases that vampires who are younger when they were changed will not be in such a craze for blood but it mainly depends on the personality of that younger person. Both Shay and Amber are under eighteen. It is very possible that that little factor is keeping them from being in a frenzy right now." Grace explained. "But this is just a small theory; it was never actually proven that this is the case. I just heard another coven discussing it."

Lester's eyes lit up, "Well that would explain some things."

"But I was bitten when I was sixteen and I was in a complete frenzy for blood as soon as I woke up." Jeremy said, slightly agitated.

"Like I said," Grace started, "It mostly depends on the personality of the person who was bitten."

"That would make sense, but Shay and Amber need to feed so Jeremy and I can take them right now into the forest to hunt." He then turned to Shay and I. "Even if you aren't thirsty you still need to feed." Lester told us in a stern tone. "You can become very weak if you do not feed often enough when on the animal diet. Animal blood is not as rich as human blood and if you do not feed often enough you can slip up and accidentally kill a human because the scent of their blood is so potent. Since you are newborns you need to feed around once a day or so." He told us. "Grace, can you watch over the remaining three until we get back? We won't go far, call Jeremy's cell phone if any of them wake up before we return."

"Okay, I will keep an eye out on the other three kids. Have fun dears." Grace said before she waltzed back inside.

"Let's go." Lester announced and before any of us could utter a word he took off into the woods, Jeremy not far behind me. Shay and I shrugged and then together took off after them.

* * *

**So, thoughts? Comments? Ideas? Let me know what you think, even if it's just as small as a smiley face as the review or telling me about my grammar mistakes (which nobody is perfect) There was one word I was unsure of, "proven" is that spelled right? On here the spellchecker said it was wrong, ah well. If you know the answer, you can let me know. :) But I hope you enjoyed it. Next update depends on how many reviews I get!! **

**1 to 2 reviews: two weeks. **

**3 reviews: one week. **

**4 to 6 reviews: I'll update Wednesday. **

**7 to 10 reviews: Monday. **

**More than 11 reviews: I'll update tomorrow :)**


	10. Chapter 9: Pale

**AUTHORS NOTE: _Hey everyone, guess what I'm BACK and with a brand new chapter that you all are anticipating, or at least I hope you are. So now is when I sit here and apologize profusely for not updating when I said that I would!! So I apologize, I said if I got 4-6 reviews I would update Wednesday, but I got caught up in something yesterday and completely forgot to update. I apologize but here is Chapter Nine :) It's long, there are a few major surprises and we get to learn even MORE about my strange vampires! Yay? Lol. Anyways, I thank you all for reviewing, favoriting and alerting _Midnight Tryst **_**it means alot to me cause you know, everyone likes a pat on the back every once and a while :) And if you haven't reviewed yet, don't be shy, feel free to do so. I love reviews, haha. Anyways, school's over now so I'm going to have more time on my hands (**after I get done with nasty drivers training, not that I even really need it...okay, maybe I do but that's beside the point. HA! All I can say is that it's going to be an interesting adventure today and for the next few weeks, sorry. I REALLY need to get this rambling thing fixed...**.) But anyways, updates hopefully will be coming more often. **_

**IMPORTANT _SIDE _NOTE (ESPECIALLY FOR TWILIGHT FANS): _After I finish this story I think I'm going to make_ A SEQUEL_, I know it's a little early to be talking about that but before I started this I had originally planned for this to be a_ Twilight _crossover with my own characters and Stephenie Meyer's characters. I started a separate story that has all these characters in it but mainly focuses on Bella. I didn't want to just drop all my characters on people though so I came up with this huge background story for them and thus_ 'Midnight Tryst' _was born. Anyways, if any of you are interested in reading it, or know anyone who would be interested in it, let me know so I can get started on it as soon as possible, or at least get a decent plot line down for it. Maybe if I get over say...TEN reviews/replies to the idea of a sequal for this story, you'll get a_ 1000 word _sample of what the sequal will be like? Hmmm? I think that's a pretty good deal. Just note though that the sequal will NOT be posted until this story is completed, I just want to get a headstart so I don't run out of steam or get writers block. Why do you think it took me nearly to years to get half of this story completed. Lol...anyways, just let me know! THANKS! Okay, I think this is ENOUGH of me blabbing for now, so on with it :)_ **

**_- R I P ._**

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**PLAYLIST:**

_PALE_

- by -

Within Temptation

**

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**

Chapter Nine – Pale

**Amber POV**

It was a few hours later and I was currently standing in the woods about a half mile from the Harper's cabin paradise. Lester had explained to us the importance of hunting and why we needed to blood even if we weren't thirsty. He told us that even thought it seemed like we weren't thirst, and didn't feel the need to hunt, to not be fooled. He explained what could happen if we didn't feed from blood, we would start to get weak and be unable to do much of anything. On top of that, we would start loosing control of our powers and they were start going literally haywire on us.

When we had reached our destination in the woods Lester and Jeremy had taught Shay and I how to hunt and attack the animals in the forest. He said that each vampire has a favorite type of blood, whether it was Human A-Positive or Venison. Lester's favorite was lynx while Jeremy's was black bear. I personally thought that deer blood tasted the best and Lester told me that Grace agreed with me that deer tasted the best.

We also had found out rather quickly that feeding was going to be an interesting experience. When I concentrated on my 'meal' I felt myself setting into a natural predator mode and didn't even realize when my facial features had distorted right before Shay, Jeremy and Lester's eyes.

When I heard Shay gasp, I turned around to find her staring wide-eyed at me. She pointed to my face in horror and then Lester explained to me that our faces went through a natural shape change when we were in what Lester called 'predator mode'. When we weren't in predator mode our facial structures were normal and more human like, but when we were in predator mode our facial features sharpened even more to look a tad more animalistic, our eyes glowed a bright electric purple and our canine teeth elongated into sharp half inch fangs that was able to piece an animal's skin easily. Naturally I was a little freaked out by these changes but when Lester and Jeremy slipped into their predator modes I realized that it was a natural thing for vampires.

Now I was standing in the woods with a very upset Shay and an amused Jeremy and Lester while I was clearly annoyed. Shay didn't like the idea of killing animals and sucking the blood out of them any more than she did killing humans. Shay had almost cried when Lester had told me to attack a deer that was in the woods. It was ridiculous. Jeremy had held her and rubbed her back as she dry sobbed since apparently vampires can't form tears and cry. As I watched Jeremy comfort Shay I couldn't help it that my dead heart lurched because I knew that I would never have someone to comfort me the way that Jeremy comforted Shay. The one person I wanted to be with me couldn't because he was human. I was a vampire and I knew that I would never be able to be with him. It seemed like just yesterday he was stronger than me but now I was probably five times stronger than he will ever be as a human. I knew that I couldn't be as selfish as to change him. That would be absurd.

'_Now that I'm a vampire will I ever be able to see him again?'_ I wondered but I didn't voice it.

I was brought out my thoughts by Shay's complaining. I had just finished my third deer and Shay was still complaining about killing her first meal ever, she had yet to hunt again.

"I still don't know why we have to hurt the poor things." Shay said.

"Would you rather suck the blood out of a human?" I asked her sarcastically as a quickly slipped out of predator mode and back into my human features. Shay had slipped out of predator mode a long while before me, saying that it was something that she would have to get used to a little at a time.

Shay looked appalled, "Of course not!" she said.

Lester and Jeremy started snickering at our argument, they thought it was hilarious: a vampire who dry sobbed when she drank an animal's blood. Shay and I shut them up with a couple death glares.

"Well then stop complaining!" I snapped at Shay.

'_Stop complaining? Is she serious, how can I stop complaining? I mean geez, the animals are all cute and everything and I have to go kill the poor things and then suck the freakin blood out of them! I don't like—' _I heard Shay say, or at least I thought she said. I groaned and stopped walking.

'_God damnit. Shay, stop thinking about the deer!' _I voiced loudly in my head.

Suddenly Shay's talking changed, '_—having to kill the poor thi—What the heck, was that just Amber's voice I heard?.' _I listened in amazement as Shay started talking about something different—about hearing my voice no less. But the thing was, I hadn't even said anything out loud. I listened as Shay rambled on for a while about hearing my voice but I quickly grew agitated with that and turned to glare at Shay while she kept on talking.

"Look the talking about the cute animals was annoying enough and now you are rambling on about hearing me talking to you when I haven't said one word aloud since I yelled at you earlier! Can't you be quiet for five seconds so I can freakin' concentrate!" I told her in frustration.

'_But Shay wasn't even talking. Why would Amber yell at her when she wasn't even talking?' _I heard Jeremy say.

"She was too talking!" I yelled at him. "Stop trying to defend her! She was rambling about hearing me talk for about five minutes before I yelled at her!"

Jeremy looked confused but didn't say anything else after that. This time Shay said something, "But I never said anything." She said.

"Yes you did, I sat there and listening to you clearly say, 'Stop complaining? Is she serious, how can I stop complaining? I mean geez, the animals are all cute and everything and I have to go kill the poor things and then suck the freakin blood out of them! I don't like having to kill the poor thi—' and then you cut off and started talking about me talking to you." I argued.

I looked over to Lester. He was shaking his head but he still had a grin on his face. His lips never moved but I heard him speak clearly, '_I wonder if Amber might be a mind reader. Amber can you hear me?' _he asked me without ever moving his lips.

"How do you do that Lester? You are talking to me but your lips don't move." I told him.

'_I'm not talking, I am thinking these things. Can you hear me?' _he asked.

"Yes I can hear you." I answered him.

Shay and Jeremy were both looking at me and Lester in amazement as we held this almost silent conversation.

"I think that Amber is a mind reader." Lester said. "She can hear all my thoughts and all of yours too apparently."

'_Can you hear me?' _Jeremy thought.

"Yes Jeremy I can hear you." I answered.

'_That is so cool!' _he thought loudly.

"Can you tone your thought volume down a bit, it's hurting my head." I told him with a small smirk.

He chuckled and then spoke out loud, "Sorry Amber." He said.

"Wait I don't think that Amber is any old mind reader." Shay said.

"What do you mean, she can read our thoughts." Jeremy said.

"I know but when I was thinking about the deer and everything all of a sudden without even warning I heard Amber's voice in my head telling me to shut up about the deer." Shay said.

I felt my eyes widen, "Well when she was thinking about the deer and I thought she was talking out loud I had thought in my head that she should stop thinking about the stupid deer. I was practically yelling it at her in my head."

"Well that changes things. Amber you aren't just any old mind reader, you are a telepathic!" Lester exclaimed.

"I am a what?" I asked.

"You are a telepathic. It is a type of extrasensory psychic communication where you can communicate directly from one person's mind to another without speech, writing, signs or symbols; only you have a special type of it. I think, from what I have seen so far, is that you are able to communicate to people through their thoughts and be able to hear theirs as well. You would be able to have conversations with people through their thoughts." Lester said.

I grinned and turned to Shay and thought, "_Shay, I have a cooler power than you! I have a cooler power than you!" _I taunted at her through my thoughts.

'_What? You do not have a cooler power than me!_' I heard Shay exclaim in her head. Both Jeremy and Lester looked between me and Shay with raised eyebrows. '_Do so_.' I thought back. I smiled at Shay while she scowled at me, "AMBER!" she screamed out loud.

"This is so cool!" I squealed.

Shay rolled her eyes and started plotting ways to torture me in her head.

'_Shay I can read your mind, I know what you're planning_.' I taunted to her through my thoughts again.

She scowled, "I am going to find some way to block your thoughts Amber!" she said.

"You know, everything is starting to make sense now." I pondered lightly.

"What do you mean?" Jeremy asked me.

"Well, when I awoke from my change I kept hearing voices—but they were muffled. It was like there were several people in the room with me but there was a glass wall surrounding them, making their voices muffled. When I opened my eyes to see who was in the room with me and why they were all speaking about random, muffled things, the only person I saw in the room was Grace and she wasn't even speaking." I explained.

Jeremy chuckled, "Well, I guess that does explain a lot then."

Shay turned to Lester, ignoring me and Jeremy's conversation. "What day is today?" Shay asked him.

"Well you were changed Friday night, you were going through the transformation for three days and so today would be Monday night." Jeremy told her before Lester even got the chance to reply.

"Right," I answered. "Grace told me earlier—today would have been my sixteenth birthday." I sighed.

"It's your birthday?" Jeremy asked.

I nodded, "Yeah, but it looks like this time I won't actually be getting any older. Stuck at fifteen forever—yay." I cheered sarcastically.

"Technically," Lester started, "You don't stop aging until your heart stops. Since your heart officially stopped today—on your sixteenth birthday, you are official sixteen for the rest of your immortal existence."

I smiled at him, "You know, that's exactly what Grace said too."

"Grace is right," Lester said.

We fell into silence and I couldn't help but listen into everyone's thoughts. Shay's stood out to me though, '_Aren't we supposed to be back in school on Thursday, how are we supposed to be able to go back to school as a bunch of vampires? Will we be able to go to school at all now!?' _I heard Shay think.

"Everyone is expecting us back at school on Thursday, what are we going to do about that?" I questioned for Shay after hearing her thoughts.

Lester pondered a moment, "You might be able to return back to school but it depends on if the rest of your friends are in this much control over themselves. We also need to come up with an explanation for your parents on why you guys are staying at our house and we need to figure out what to do about Brie." He said grimly.

"What are we going to do? Brie's parents are going to expect her back on Thursday. We can't just say that we lost her in the woods or something." Shay wailed.

Suddenly something struck me. I turned to Jeremy, "Grace told me that your power was to make copies of things." I said.

"Yeah, why?" he asked, a little unsure.

"Well…we fake her death. Steal Brie's car and Jeremy can make a replica of Brie. We can make it look like she was in a really bad car accident." I said.

Lester tapped his chin, "That might work…" he said slowly. "Jeremy, do you think you would be able to make a replica of her body?" he asked him.

Jeremy nodded, "I'm about ninety-five percent sure I can." He said.

"But I thought you could only make replicas of things that already exist. Brie is dead, how can you make a replica of that?" Shay asked.

Jeremy chuckled, "Just because she is dead doesn't mean that she doesn't exist anymore. She isn't completely destroyed so I can still make a copy of her. Besides I don't know if Grace told you or not but I can also make replicas of things that were recently deceased or destroyed but usually there is only like a two or three day limit on that."

"But Lester had to—" Shay shivered slightly at her next words. "—Rip her up into pieces so that she wouldn't—well Lester never explained what would happen exactly—but wouldn't the replica be all ripped up then?"

"I'll tell you, someday. But, it isn't something that we like to talk about. It's an extremely dangerous process and not something that many people would like to hear." Lester threw in softly.

Jeremy shook his head, continuing on, "No, it wouldn't. I'm not sure exactly how it works but her body will be exactly how it would have been before the vampires attacked her."

I grinned at him, "You seem to know a lot about this, have you done this before?" I asked him.

Jeremy gave me a secretive grin, "Possibly." he said evasively.

"Well then everything is settled, we can say that Brie went back for her car and then got in an accident on the way back." Shay said.

"That is almost fool-proof Shay!" Jeremy exclaimed and gave her a high five. "Amber, your idea was brilliant. You and Shay are like evil master-minds or something." he said.

I chuckled at Jeremy's words. I then turned to Lester, "What do you think Lester?" I asked him.

He nodded, "I agree with Jeremy. It's the best we can do at this short notice." Lester said.

"When should we do it?" Shay asked.

"How about we do it Wednesday night? That way the adults don't get suspicious." I said.

Jeremy and Shay nodded in agreement but Lester was lost in thought, '_I will have to speak with Grace about this and see what she thinks. We will also have to talk to the other children and see what they think. I do think that this is a pretty fool-proof idea. And I'm sure its going to be safe for Amber and Shay to return to school but I'm not sure about the others yet. There is always that small chance though, especially as newborns. They may not be able to return for a few weeks.' _Lester thought.

"What do you mean by there is always a chance, Lester?" I asked him when I heard his thoughts.

Shay and Jeremy looked confused but Lester just laughed, "Well even though I'm sure that it will be safe with you returning to school there is always the chance that you can slip up. We haven't tested you two around humans yet. Like I told you earlier, human blood is about a thousand times more potent that an animals. We will just have to see what happens, if you return to school at all, it may have to wait a few weeks."

I nodded, completely understanding what he meant.

"What would happen if not all of us can control our blood lust?" Shay asked. "Will some of us be able to go back to school while the others stayed here or will none of us be able to go back?"

Lester shook his head, "What do you think would happen if more than one of you suddenly disappears? People will begin to talk and then they could suspect us. It would be too risky. We would have to somehow fake all of your deaths and then destroy all the evidence left behind. We would then have to move somewhere else. I'm sorry but it would just be too risky. Faking just Brie's death is already pushing it." Lester said while looking at her sadly.

"What do you mean?" Shay asked.

I understood so I tried to explain it further to Shay, "Okay imagine if all the others did not have the good control over themselves and they had to stay away from all human contact but we were able to return back to school. That means that four of the six people that went on the trip we would have to find cover stories for. If it was just one person—Brie it is easy to make a cover story for. We came up with her car crash thing but after we kill off four people someone would start to get suspicious. It's either all of us or none of us. We can't exactly say that they are vampires and can't be around people. People aren't supposed to know about vampires are they?" I asked.

Jeremy shook his head, "It is a rule that if a human does find out you are supposed to either kill them or change them. If you break that rule there can be very dangerous consequences. We have to be careful." He told us.

"I guess that makes since." Shay said.

"Well enough talk about this type of thing for now, we should get back to the house. The other may be awake now and we need to fill Grace in on own future plans." Lester told us.

"Sounds good." Shay said.

I nodded in agreement, "Race ya!" I said with a giggle.

Shay and Jeremy laughed and then the four of us, Shay, Jeremy, Lester and I, all raced back to the house at vampire speed. We made it back to the house in record time. Jeremy reached the porch first, doing a little victory dance by the front door with Shay, Lester and I right on his tail. When we walked into the glorious cabin that I could now call my home I saw that Grace was waiting for us on one of the brown leather couches in the downstairs living room.

"Did you have a nice time?" Grace asked us.

I smiled, "We figured out my power!" I said happily.

Grace raised an eyebrow, "What is it?" she asked curiously.

"Amber's power is telepathy." Lester answered.

Grace's eyes widened, "So you can read minds plus have conversations through thoughts?" she asked with a smirk.

I nodded, '_Yep_.' I thought to her. She jumped slightly at first but relaxed after a moment when she realized I was just using my power.

"I wouldn't use it on the humans though. It would freak them out way too much. At least with vampires we know that other vampires can have really strange powers." Grace giggled.

"I think that would be pretty entertaining though!" I said truthfully.

Jeremy laughed, "Maybe for the vampire who is doing it, but the human would be probably having a heart-attack!" he said.

Lester decided to change the subject, "So, we found out what we are going to do about Brie and we are considering letting the children go back to school." He told Grace.

"Really, well let me in on the details." Grace said.

"Well Jeremy is going to create a replica of Brie's body, then on Wednesday night we are going to sneak into town and steal Brie's car and then we are going to make her death look like a really bad car accident." I explained.

"Sounds reasonable, I think we can handle it." Grace approved.

I grinned, "Good because I came up with that plan."

She laughed, "Well it's a pretty fool proof plan Amber. So what are you going to do about going back to school?" she inquired.

"Well Amber and Shay do not have any desire to go after blood—" he said. I had to let out a small snort. Shay sent me a glare. "—especially Shay here. I think Shay is the only vampire ever to dry sob after drinking blood." Lester chuckled.

Grace agreed with a nod of her head, "She probably is."

"The deer was cute, I didn't like killing it." Shay reasoned, trying to defend her actions.

We all laughed at that. "It's okay Shay." I said. "I didn't mean to snap at you out there though but hey, if I didn't we wouldn't know my power right now." I said.

"Yeah, I guess not." She said.

"Anyways, since they don't have any desire to hunt we are considering letting them go back to school when it starts back up again on Thursday. I was thinking that Jeremy could go with them and pose as a Sophomore or a Junior and maybe you could pose as a senior." Lester suggested to Grace.

"I will go." Jeremy said as he looked at Shay.

"I'll think about it. Do you really think a twenty-two year old vampire can pose for an eighteen year old human?" Grace asked.

"We can say you started school a year later than most or something. I'm sure you can Grace." Shay told her.

Grace nodded, "Like I said, I'll think about it."

"So what do we do now?" I asked.

"Well I'm going to go check on the others; you kids can watch movies or something." Grace suggested.

"Sure." Shay said.

Lester and Grace both left leaving me, Shay and Jeremy in the living room alone. Me in one of the armchairs while Shay and Jeremy shared the couch, "So what do you want to watch?" I asked as I made myself comfortable by pulling my legs up on the chair with me.

"Let's watch stereotype movies about vampires and then make fun of them!" Shay suggested with a giggle.

Jeremy chuckled, "Oh we have plenty of those." He said. "Let's watch _Dracula_ first." He said.

Jeremy got up and went over to the flat screen and turned it on. He went over to a little wooden TV cabinet and pulled out a DVD and then popped it into the DVD player. He then sat back down on the couch with Shay. As the movie started I felt my newly dead heart lurch again for the second time that day.

'_What's wrong Amber?_' Shay asked me in her head.

'_Damn, I forgot that she can read and see my emotions now!' _I grumbled to myself in my head.

'_Nothing, I'm fine Shay_.' I lied.

'_Are you sure?_' she asked skeptically.

I nodded my head and tried to give her an honest smile, "Relax, I'm fine." I said verbally.

Jeremy's head snapped up, a confused expression on his face before he came to a look of realization, "That is really going to take some getting used to." he mumbled, more to himself than me and Shay.

I chuckled while Shay nodded and we all went back to watching the movie. Shay knew that something was bothering me but she also knew that I wouldn't tell her unless I really wanted too. I tried to distract myself and I ended up trying to focus on watching the movie instead of thinking about _him. _

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**You know what time it is, review :) Same concept as the last update.**

**1 review: two weeks.**

**2 reviews: one week.**

**3 to 4 reviews: Tuesday.**

**5 to 6 reviews: Sunday.**

**7 and above: Saturday :)**

**_Also, let me know as soon as possible on the SEQUEL thing. If you have NO idea what I'm talking about, SHAME ON YOU, but if you really don't check the side note at the top. It explains ALL!_**


	11. Chapter 10: 3 Cheers For Sweet Revenge

**AUTHORS NOTE: _Hey everyone, so I'm back in business (haha, that sounded pretty cheesy.) But really, I've got up a new two-shot under Twilight called "It's You" and I'm starting to get back into writing "Lachrymose" as well as this story. So as promised, here is the tenth (Wow, its the TENTH chapter already) Also, as for the sequel, I'm probably going to do it, BUT not until Midnight Tryst AND Lachrymose is completed so it might be a while. _**

**_Anyways, I've been pretty busy updating my fanfic website: http://musicormiseryfanfics[dot]weebly[dot]com/index[dot]html You all should check it out. It has tons of behind the scene stuff as well as pictures for the Harper's house, cars, characters and just other random junk. And for any of you Lachrymose fans, I've finally got that page put together. So there is character pictures and banners and random junk under there too. So don't forget to check that out. Anyways, now on to the chapter. A little bit of foreshadowing in this chapter, can you find it? Please review, I love hearing you're thoughts!_**

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**PLAYLIST:**

_Vampires Will Never Hurt You_

- by -

My Chemical Romance

[Just a small note in case you're wondering: _Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge_ is the name of an album by My Chemical Romance, although a different one that the song is under. It's really good, so if you're bored, check that out as well.]

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**Chapter Ten – Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge**

**Amber POV**

The next day Olivia, Matt and Roxie had awoken from their transformations. They had gotten just as big of a greeting as Shay and I had gotten when we had first awoken. Olivia, Matt and Roxie were shocked that it had been Lester and his wife that had saved us from our upending death, but they were defiantly sure to thank them. As expected, they were all confused on the whole vampire thing for a while but Lester, Jeremy and Grace had tried their best to answer all their questions the best that they could. Shay and I tried to explain things too since we knew what they were going through, we had already experienced their confusion—heck, we were _still _experiencing it. Shay and I had found ourselves asking a countless number of questions about being vampires while the others were still transforming.

We were now in the Harper's living room explaining to Roxie, Olivia and Matt how we all even became vampires in the first place. This was a topic that Shay and I had never gotten to with our questioning.

"Do you know the vampires that changed us?" Roxie asked suddenly.

Grace, Lester and Jeremy all exchanged quick glances before turning back to us, "Yes we do. They have been after you guys for years. Ever since the first year that I started camping out with you guys, they have been after you." Lester told us truthfully.

A series of gasps erupted around the room. I quickly dug into everyone's thoughts.

'_What did we do to make them hate us so much?' _Roxie wondered.

'_They have been after us for almost five years? How? And even more importantly, why?' _Shay thought.

'_How come they didn't kill us the first time?' _Olivia thought.

'_Why would they to come after us?' _Matt questioned.

'_I can't believe that Vicente actually outsmarted us for once!' _Lester cursed.

'_The Havok's are stupid, how could we have fallen for their stupid trap!' _Jeremy doubted.

'_We have always been there to protect them before. All those years when Vicente was after them we were always able to stop them—we were there to protect them. How did they fool us this time?' _Grace thought in distress.

Grace's thoughts made me stop for a moment, "What do you mean you were always there to protect us?" I asked Grace.

At that moment all my friends heads turned to attention and looked at Grace with curious expression, clearly wondering what I had heard her think in her head. I also couldn't help but notice that Grace, Lester and Jeremy all looked guilty and wouldn't meet my gaze.

"I guess we should explain." Lester said softly.

I nodded, "Yes, an explanation would be nice."

"As you know, Lester had only been in Shiloh for a few weeks when he first came upon you guys. We were intrigued by you guys, especially when Lester found something universally disturbing in all of your futures." Grace began to explain. "Well, with Lester's power he is to mooch off of other vampires powers, but of course you already knew this. Anyways, a few decades ago he encountered a vampire with the power of seeing a person's future. He thought that the power would be useful, so he mooched off of it. When he first met you children he looked into your futures, as he does anytime he meets a vampire or human and becomes close to them. He does it out of habit, not as an invasion of your privacy. He also did it for your safety. He wanted to make sure that none of us would accidentally hurt you by being near you." She explained to us in her kind, motherly voice, "Now, when he checked your futures, he discovered that you were safe from us, but not others. There were many so many different vampires in all of your futures, except Brie's which we didn't understand—until now. Those vampires included Vicente and his coven, as well as our family and some other vampires whom we don't even know. The other vampires were vegetarian, like ourselves, but they seemed as though they were a completely different type of vampires from our own. They live somewhere in the Northwestern United States. But they are nothing to really worry about, they weren't going to cause us any harm. In fact, if the future is correct, they will become close friends with us in the future. Anyways, after seeing this, Lester decided that maybe it was best to get to know you kids." she paused and let Lester continue.

"Mainly, it started when you kids wanted to go on your camping trip. Your parents asked me to go along with you kids to supervise and I agreed because I was friends with your parents as well as you. It was the first time that Vicente and his coven were in the area, only we didn't know this at the time." Lester said.

"Vicente?" Olivia asked in confusion.

"Vicente Havok is the leader of the Havok Coven, the vampire coven that attacked you guys. Vicente was the black hair vampire that attacked you, Amber." Lester said while looking straight at me.

So Vicente was the evil man who had changed me, I felt my eyes growing darker, something Lester explained happened to vampires when they were weak from not feeding in ages or very angry. My eyes were darkening with rage towards the man who had changed me into this horrendous creature. I noticed everyone else was nodding in understanding and were waiting for Lester, Grace and Jeremy to finish the story.

"While you guys were with Lester—Grace and I were hunting in the woods when we first came across Vicente. We overheard him and his coven plotting to attack you guys and we came to find Lester. They had never come across vegetarian vampires before and were thought that Lester was human, which worked to our advantage. Once Lester found out about that he was able to get Grace to sneak into your campsite that night to set a force field around the campsite to protect you from Vicente and his coven." Jeremy said.

"When Vicente found out that we were the ones keeping him from getting too you he came after us but with Grace's blocking power on our side, he couldn't get to us. During the confrontation something changed though, he looked at me with such malice, it was like he had known me from somewhere or something. He hissed out something about getting revenge against the one who took his life away from him—which none of us understood. That night Vicente made a vow that he would get you guys someday though. That was when I started watching you kids more frequently and why I didn't want you going in the woods alone, even when you went on the four-wheeler paths." Lester said dourly.

"That's why you told us not to go out on our four wheelers with Bentley, Ethan and Xander!" I exclaimed. Lester nodded at my revelation.

"One of Vicente's coven members had heard us talking about how you wanted to make it a tradition that on your fall break you would come back to the camping spot to camp out and they went out to tell Vicente this piece of information. During the rest of the year he and his coven would travel across America and then come back here during your fall break to attempt attack you guys since it was the same time very single year—the first weekend in October. We found out his plans though and Lester made sure that he kept an eye on you kids. He wasn't going to let Vicente get anywhere near you." Grace explained.

"Anyways this year you guys came camping earlier than we were expecting." Jeremy noted.

Matt shook his head, "Our break was earlier this year for some reason. That messed everything up, didn't it?" he asked.

Grace nodded, "Vicente and his coven came a little earlier than normal and we had no idea that they were here. You guys also showed up early. We would have never known you were here if we hadn't have gone hunting. Jeremy decided to stay at the house since he had hunted the night before so it was just Lester and I. We heard screaming and we knew that we had misjudged the time. We didn't have enough time to get Jeremy, we had to hurry and get to you guys. They had already started to attack when we got there. We were just barely able to save the rest of you." She said softly.

We all knew what she meant by that statement, the others knew about Brie already. It seemed like everyone was in shock for a while until Roxie spoke up, "Thank you for saving us and taking care of us. You didn't have too, what you guys did is, well simply put, amazing." She whispered quietly.

All of the three Harper's beamed with happiness, "It was no problem, we weren't about to let them get away with murdering all of you. You were all innocent kids with healthy futures ahead of you. But, it seems as though you were destined for vampire life." Lester said modestly.

"Thank you for taking us into your home too." Olivia said, after Lester finished.

"We couldn't just leave you out in the cold. Just because our heart doesn't actually beat doesn't mean we don't have one." Grace giggled.

We all smiled at her joke.

"Well thank you anyways." Matt said.

"Really, it was no trouble at all." Jeremy said. "Really it's nice to have some other people my 'age' around here." He laughed.

Everyone all laughed along with his joke. I glanced around the room, making a note of everything that I was seeing. Grace and Lester were cuddled up on the love seat. Lester had his arm casually draped around his wife's shoulders while Grace laughing loudly along with everyone, her violet eyes sparkling brightly. Olivia, Matt, Jeremy and Shay occupied the larger couch. Shay and Jeremy were staring at each other happily, not paying attention to anyone else in the room besides each other while Olivia and Matt were enjoying a playful banter with each other. Roxie and I were both sitting on the over sized beige armchair, me sitting in the actual chair with my legs pulled up on the chair with me while Roxie was sitting Indian-style on the footstool leaning back against my knees for support.

As I took in ever detail I couldn't help but feel like what was going on around me was meant to happen—that my friends and the Harper's were meant to be together as a family. Lester was correct when he said that we were destined for vampire life. It just felt right—there was no other way to explain it. And, although I still felt like I was a bloodthirsty monster, I felt better knowing that I wasn't going to be killing humans like Vicente's coven. I actually had a choice. I chose not to be the typical vampire.

Shay interrupted my utterly content thoughts with a question that I knew had been probing in her mind for since Lester, Grace and Jeremy had told their story to us. "So what happens now? I personally want revenge on those stupid vampires that attacked us. How dare they mess with us?" Shay voiced with venom present in her usually soft voice.

I couldn't help but nod in agreement to her statement, "I agree with Shay—we can't just let them get away with something like that!" I said.

Jeremy was looking very enthusiastic but we all knew that Lester and Grace had the final say, after all, they were the Harper coven leaders. So we all turned to Grace and Lester to hear their thoughts on the situation.

"Well I don't want to cause a huge fight or anything but if we do run into them or if they try and cause trouble with us we won't hesitate to fight them. We outnumber them now. It would be six vampires against eight. Also we have the fact that all of us have extremely useful powers while not everyone in his coven has abilities." Lester explained.

A bright smile crossed my features; maybe we could get revenge after all.

**-x-x-x-**

On Tuesday afternoon after we had finished our big discussion, Lester and Jeremy wanted to take Roxie, Olivia and Matt hunting for their first time to see if they had the control that Shay and I had. Luckily, they did and Lester gave us the good news that he thought it would be safe for us to return to school. I was actually happy about returning to school—for one reason and one reason only.

Roxie and Shay agreed with me and were excited about returning to school while Olivia and Matt were a bit more apprehensive about returning. Olivia didn't want to return because she was afraid that one of us would accidentally slip up while Matt didn't want to go back just because he despised school. But none the less it was decided that we would return so we could continue our education. Lester didn't like the idea of having to pull us out of school.

Lester also decided that to be on the safe side, Grace and Jeremy were going to enroll at STH with us. Grace was going to pose as a new Senior while we decided that Jeremy would pose as a Sophomore. I knew from his thoughts that Jeremy was only agreeing with the idea of coming to school so that he could be with Shay. I couldn't help but smirk—he was head over heels for her even though he had only known her a few days. I thought it was kind of cute.

To me it seemed a little crazy—just a little over four days ago I was a human living in Shiloh with my parents and having no knowledge about real vampires. Now I am a newborn vampire with special telepathic abilities who lives in a beautiful house in the woods with her new vampiric family. Of course my new vampire family consisted of Grace and Lester as the parental figures, and then Jeremy, Roxie, Matt, Olivia and Shay as my brothers and sisters.

My friends and I were already starting to consider Lester and Grace as parental figures even though they took on the appearance of early twenty year olds. Lester and Grace told us little things that they remembered from their human life and how they came to be vampires. Lester told us that he was changed in 1807 when he was twenty-five years old and then Grace told us that she was one hundred and five years old and was changed in 1902 when she was twenty-two. To tell you the truth I am a little freaked out about forever having the appearance of a _sixteen_ year old but like Grace said, it very easy to pass for a seventeen or eighteen year old if I wanted to thanks to my new vampire body. I also knew that Shay and Roxie felt the same thanks to my mind reading capabilities.

Also to Grace and Lester's surprise Matt, Roxie and Olivia all have powers, which according to Lester was something very uncommon. Lester said that normally not ever vampire in a coven has special abilities and that it is very rare for a large coven to all have powers.

Olivia is a psychic, she can read into anyone's future but she has to have seen that person and looked into their eyes before she can read their future. After the first time she has looked into their eyes she will be able to read their future anytime. She can also see important events that are going to happen in the future besides just seeing people's lives.

The first time she had a vision it scared all of us…

Olivia was the next one, after Shay and me, to awake from her change. She had only been up for a few moments when she spaced out. Her eyes became unfocused and she wasn't freaking or responding to anything around her. A few moments later her eyes went back into focus, she blinked and then looked at us and told us that Matt would wake up in about five minutes. Sure enough, five minutes later Matt was awake.

Matt has the power of metamorphosis. That basically means that he can change into any living animal or person that he chooses. It is kind of like a combination of morphing and metamorphosis because he can also change the physical appearance of any living person or thing as well.

It was actually kind of funny how we figured out what his power was. He was standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom, taking in his new appearance when it happened. Lester was in the middle of telling Matt that after a year of drinking animal blood his eyes would turn the same violet color as Grace and Jeremy's. Suddenly Matt's eyes turned from red to purple right in front of our own eyes. It took us a moment to figure out that Matt was able to change his appearance. After experimenting we found out that he could change other's appearances as well. Lester thought this was especially helpful because Matt could use his power to change our eyes from the bloody red color to the violet color that Lester, Grace and Jeremy had. It would help us blend in at school. Before we knew Matt's power, Lester was going to give us contacts to wear. But now, it wasn't necessary.

And last but not least Roxie has telekinesis. That means that she is able to move or change the shape of any inanimate object without the use of a physical force. Basically she can control inanimate objects with her mind. If she wanted to she could throw a chair at someone without lifting a single finger. Which she has already done that once, that is how we figured out her power. She threw a chair at me after she figured out what my power was. I found out quickly that she doesn't like me reading her thoughts.

For the most part everyone loves their powers and it isn't taking us very long to understand them although Lester says that it will be a long time before we can completely master them. Lester and Grace know about almost every power there is for vampires by now and so they have tried to teach us as much as they can about our powers. Lester also gave us a strict rule that we are not to use any of our powers on the humans. Well Shay, Olivia and I can to an extent. I can't talk to them through my thoughts but I can read their minds, Shay can figure out their emotions but she isn't supposed to alter them, and Olivia can look into their futures but Lester told her not to try and mess with their futures as much. Messing with their futures would be messing with Fate.

Matt and Roxie on the other hand are different. Matt is not supposed to under any circumstance change a human's appearance and Roxie can not use her telekinesis around them, even to throw a pencil at them with her mind. So basically some of us can use our powers around them but only to an extent. Jeremy and Grace aren't allowed to use their powers around the humans either. But all of us were content with that. All we wanted to do was return to our old lifestyle as much as possible.

**-x-x-x-**

I plopped down in the love-seat in the living room in the extremely early morning on Wednesday and got lost in my own thoughts. It was taking all of us a while to get used to the fact that we didn't sleep. Well, we could sleep but it was only a couple times a month for a few hours. Our bodies got energy from the blood that we drank the venom in our bodies so we didn't have to sleep to let our body rest itself as much as humans did.

As I sat there lost in my thoughts I realized that a lot of things were going to be changing. Not only my sleeping habits but my dieting habits were defiantly changing as well as many human necessities that I used to have to deal with.

Of course I had to drink blood on nearly a daily basis but I couldn't eat human food as much as I had while I was human. The venom in our bodies were able to break down some drinks that we had drank while we were human but if we ate human food then we would end up regurgitating it back up—which from what I had heard from Jeremy, was something that wasn't pleasant at all. I didn't have to use the bathroom like humans did either, since our venom was able to break down and absorb human drinks we just didn't have that problem anymore. We didn't sweat either so we only had to shower if we got dirty from hunting but it was also something that was a human habit and we knew that we weren't going to stop doing anytime soon.

'_I still can not believe we are going back to school. I am a little anxious about how everyone will react to us looking different now_.' That last thought had been on my mind since I had taken a good, long look in the mirror and realized how much I _had _changed during my transformation.

I was brought out of my thoughts by Matt, "So it's Wednesday, are we gonna do this now?" he asked.

It was now time to put mine and Shay's plan into action, the one where we would fake 'Brie's death' by crashing her beloved car.

"Well Jeremy has already made a copy of Brie's body so all we need now is Brie's car." Grace informed us.

"Well which of us is going to go into town?" Olivia asked.

"How about Grace and I go and—well I assume all of you know where Brie lives, right?" Lester asked. We all nodded in response. "Okay, well how many of you know how to hot wire a car?" he asked with a small smile.

Matt chuckled, "I do!"

'_I'm not even going to ask how you know how to do that_.' I sent my thoughts to him with a slight grimace on my face.

Matt looked over and me and chuckled slightly.

"Well then I guess Matt can come with us to hot wire Brie's car while the rest of you get the 'crime scene' things together. Who is going to call in the accident?" Lester asked.

Jeremy raised his hand, "I will, they won't know who I am and I can just say I was a passerby and saw the accident." He said.

"It does make sense, if one of us calls it in they might be suspicious but if Jeremy calls it in…" Shay trailed off with a small smile.

"We have us a fool proof plan!" Grace said with a grin.

"So when are we leaving?" Matt asked.

Lester looked outside, "It is around three in the morning so we have about three hours before it starts getting light. I say we leave now and try and get the scene done before dawn." Lester said.

"Sounds good to me." Matt replied.

"What do you want us to do while you are gone?" Olivia asked. Lester, Grace and Matt were all standing at this point, ready to leave.

"Well, we need you guys to wait at the scene for us and bring Brie's copy body with you." Lester instructed.

Olivia, Shay, Jeremy, Roxie and I all nodded.

And with that they left, running vampire speed out of the house.

"Should we go to the scene now or should we wait for a while?" Shay asked Jeremy.

Jeremy shrugged, "I guess it wouldn't hurt to leave now although we will be waiting a while." He said.

"Well maybe we could work on our cover stories while we are there." Roxie suggested.

"Yeah and we also need to come up with a plan to trick our parents into letting us live with you guys. Our parents will defiantly get suspicious if we don't eat food anymore or don't sleep except for maybe twice a month. And then there is also the little fact that we will be sneaking out on a regular basis so that we _can_ go '_eat_.'" I pointed out.

Olivia giggled, "And by _eat_ you really mean hunt." She said. Lester, Grace and Jeremy referred to their type of feeding as 'hunting' since technically they were 'hunting' the animals—just not with the types of weapons you would normally associate hunting with.

I nodded, agreeing with her completely. "Of course, I mean human food—disgusting." I said while wrinkling my nose in fake disgust. We found out that now as vampires human food not only smelled utterly nauseating to us but tasted horrendous too.

"Who would have thought that human food was so repulsive now." Shay said.

"It tastes like rubber!" Roxie said.

"Now I know how Matt felt hanging out with you girls all the time." Jeremy teased.

'_But it isn't so bad since Shay is here. Amber, I know you are reading my thoughts please don't say anything—not yet.' _Jeremy pleaded with his mind. I nodded my head at him and he gave me a small smile of relief.

"Hey it isn't all that bad," Olivia said, completely ignoring mine and Jeremy's silent conversation, "if he can deal with it then so can you."

I smirked, "I don't think he minds it so much, he was just teasing." I said while looking straight at him.

"You know I will never get used to you being able to read peoples minds." Roxie said.

"And I will never be able to get used to the fact that you can throw objects at me on a daily basis." I retorted.

"I will never get used to the fact that we only sleep probably around twice a month." Olivia said.

Jeremy laughed, "Yes you will, after a while everything will seem so natural that being human just doesn't sound so great anymore. The only thing I'm still not used to it the whole sun part." He said.

"What do you mean the whole 'sun part'? We have been outside before in the sun, well actually the woods, but we didn't burn or anything." Shay said.

Jeremy started to laugh loudly, so loud in fact that the vibrations from this laugh were shaking the glass windows of the house. "Didn't you get anything from the stereotype thing—there aren't many of those stereotype myths that are true." he asked with a smirk when he was finally able to calm himself.

Olivia frowned, "Well some of them were true, like the fangs and of course the drinking blood thing." she pointed out.

"Okay," he relented with a sigh, "Maybe there are a couple exceptions, but we do not burn in the sun, but it isn't exactly healthy for us either." Jeremy said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

Jeremy started to explain, "Well, the sun affects our powers and the way that we react to things. It weakens us and causes our powers to not work as well. Like if I were trying to copy something while out in the sun, it wouldn't be an exact copy. Something would most likely be missing from it because I'm not strong enough to conjure the entire thing. It doesn't hurt us or anything though. Being in the sun just causes us to be more human. It only affects us in direct sunlight though. If there was glass in between you and the sun, it wouldn't affect you at all because that glass is catching the ray from the sun and making them bounce elsewhere. But out in the open there is nothing to stop the rays, and the rays will be bouncing off of every possible surface. It's impossible to get away from it except on cloudy days. There is also the little fact that the sun reflects off of our bodies and causes us to look kind of like a flashlight. I will have to show you sometime."

"So we probably won't be able to be around humans on sunny days?" Roxie asked.

Jeremy nodded, "How do you think they will react if you are shining like a spotlight in the sun. That would cause quite a few wrecks. You _can_ be around humans in the sun. You will just have to wear a jacket or something to cover yourself." He chuckled.

"So the whole myths things—you can't kill a vampire with a stake through the heart?" Olivia asked.

I giggled this time. I already had a theory on that one, "Olivia our skin is as hard as steel, I think we could break the stake as soon as it would hit our skin." I said.

Jeremy laughed, "Amber is absolutely correct, there is no way a stake could kill you."

"What about coffins?" Roxie said. "I mean it is a possibility, we do sleep a few times a month."

"That is only a myth as well. Do you see any coffins in any of the rooms here?" Jeremy said. Roxie shook her head in response as Jeremy's point was proven. "Although some vampires like to play along and sleep in coffins when they are available. They get a kick out of it."

Shay sighed and looked outside the window, "Should we leave soon? It's already been almost an hour since they left." She said.

"Yeah let's go, we can argue more about myths and then our cover stories once we actually get there." I joked.

Jeremy chuckled, "Alright so—race ya." He said and then took off running vampire speed down the stairs and was out the door in a matter of seconds.

I groaned, "That is so not fair Jeremy Harper." I said. I knew that he could probably hear me although I wasn't yelling. I took off after him with my new sisters on my heels.

* * *

**So, what do you think? Enjoy it? What do you think about all the new vampire stuff that has been revealed? The powers? What about Vicente and his coven? Catch the foreshadowing? If I remember right, there was two main things, but they were pretty small. Were you able to catch them? Please review :)**


	12. Chapter 11: The Webs We Weave

**Authors Note: _Sorry for the late update but I was visiting my cousin for nearly two weeks and never got the chance to update or work on my fanfics at ALL when I was with her. :( My computers still broken but I managed to find a saved copy of my drafts for this story. Unfortunatly I lost two really, really long chapters of this (the twenty and twenty-first chapters--yeah, i wrote ahead, alot.) Anyways, I have two other stories to work on as well so updates won't be coming as frequently as they had been before my computer crashed. Also, this chapter is much shorter than the others but it's also in a different POV. Enjoy :)_**

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**PLAYLIST**:

_The Webs We Weave_

-by-

Escape The Fate

* * *

**Chapter Eleven – The Webs We Weave**

**Matt POV**

In all honestly, it was really strange going back to Brie's house knowing that it would probably be one of the last times I would ever visit it—and to steal her car no less so that we could crash it to fake her death. Lester, Grace and I ran at full vampire speed the whole way there. So far I loved running much more than all of my other enhanced abilities. There was just something about it that was so exhilarating. I kind of felt like a girl saying it, but I loved the feel of the air blowing through my hair, and onto my face.

'_Wow that sounded really cheesy. Note to self, never say that out loud—or around Amber_.' I thought to myself. I was glad she wasn't here, I would need to find some way to hide my thoughts from her.

It only took us around ten minutes to reach Brie's house running at a comfortable speed. A comfortable speed for vampires was apparently as fast as the usual highway speed limit — fifty-five. Although I'm surprised that anyone in our group of friends would know that. We all have a thing for driving fast. I think it's a teenager thing because Grace and Lester were very surprised when we told them that we never really followed the speed limit.

When we did reach Brie's house, we tried to be as quiet as possible sneaking into her house. The last thing in the world that we wanted was to wake up Brie's parents. That would be a complete disaster. How could we explain exactly why the three of us were sneaking into their garage to steal Brie's car? They'd probably call the police on us, friends or no.

"So what's the game plan?" I asked them as we started to slow as we neared her house.

I did something really cliché and rubbed my hands together as if we were trying to cook up some evil plan or something. I saw Grace snigger at me out of the corner of my eye. Lester held back his laughter as well, but he rolled his eyes at me when I looked pointedly at him. He started to tell us about the 'game plan' as I had put it.

"We are going to sneak into the garage by picking the lock. Then Matt, me and you need to hotwire her car as quickly as possible. Grace will open the garage door and then as soon as you get the car hotwired, we will remove it from the garage. Grace will shut the garage door and then we will drive away as quickly and quietly as possible to the agreed upon location we discussed earlier." he said seriously. I felt as if we were going over a military mission for _Call of Duty_. Lester looked pointedly at me and cleared his throat. He was successfully able to break me from my thoughts, "They don't have a security system we have to disable do they?" Lester asked me.

I shook my head, "Nope. Brie's parents said that they never felt the need to get a security system for their house. I think they mentioned something about it being unethical." I mumbled the last part.

"Why would you think that a security system is unethical?" Grace asked in a bemused tone.

I shrugged, "I don't know, maybe I used the wrong word."

Lester chuckled, "Well I'm glad they _don't_ have a system." he said, "It would just made our job that much more complicated if they did."

"Exactly." I replied. I started thinking about what would happen if

"So let's get on with the plan." Lester said while rubbing his hands together like I had earlier, earning a twin smirks from his wife and I.

"Sounds good." Grace said.

We snuck up to the smaller garage door on the outside of the garage. Grace pulled a small bobby pin from her pocket. Lester and I watched her work her magic on the lock. After a few minutes we heard the sound of a soft click as the door unlocked, allowing us access to the garage.

"I never knew that you carried around bobby pins, Grace." I teased.

Grace turned to me and scowled, "I don't usually. But you have to remember I was born long before your time youngin'. Back in the 1900's, when I was changed, they were certainly common so don't make fun of them. But, the only reason I brought it tonight was so that I could pick the lock without damaging it." She said.

I snorted, "Right."

"Stop arguing you two—we have a job to do." Lester said.

We slowly opened the door, trying to be as quiet as possible. The three of us crept into the room. I made my way over to Brie's prized blue Saab with the top up, which was something that was a rare sight except in the winter. Grace opened the larger garage door while Lester closely observed as I tried to hotwire Brie's car as quickly as I possibly could. I had only hotwired a car a few times before—one of those times was to play a joke on a teacher at school—but every time I went I was always with people who actually knew what they were doing. I just hoped I was doing it the right way.

"Matt, are you sure you are supposed to do that?" Lester asked as I moved a couple of wires around.

I nodded my head, "Of course I'm sure, don't worry about it Lester." I said. To tell the truth I wasn't completely sure, I was just going with what my gut was telling me was right and which was wrong. Hopefully my gut was right.

After a few more crucial minutes I had completed the hotwiring. I turned to Lester, "Done." I said with a small smile on my face.

"Okay, get in the car. Grace is going to meet us outside." Lester said.

I nodded and then jumped into the familiar backseat of Brie's Saab. Lester got into the driver's seat and started the car. It started with a silent purr and Lester pulled the car out of the garage. Once we were completely outside I watched as Grace quickly shut the large garage door from the inside and then walked out of the smaller door that we entered and locked it behind her. She came and sat in the passenger's seat of Brie's Saab. Once she was in the car Lester took off in the direction where we had all agreed to meet which was a few miles from the turn off of our campsite, a likely place where Brie could have actually crashed.

As we drove in a comfortable silence, memories of Brie driving her Saab plagued my mind. In every single one of them she jamming her music extremely loud with Amber in the passenger's seat and me, Olivia, Shay and Roxie in the backseat on the way to school or to the mall or times when we were just cruising started to creep into my mind. It seemed like just yesterday we were being carefree while racing our cars around town without another care in the world. Her death had defiantly taken its toll the hardest on Amber and Olivia who were both extremely close with her. Shay, Roxie and I loved her like a big sister but we had never had the same close sister relationship that Olivia and Amber had shared with Brie. I knew it was exceedingly harder for them to deal with.

Over the past couple days it was hard for me to accept that Brie was really truly dead. Like I said, it was hard on all of us. There were times when we were sitting around the Harper house joking and playing around I would look around for Brie, waiting for her to put her two-sense into the conversation. The worst part was that I knew that Grace secretly blamed herself for Brie's death but it wasn't her fault. I didn't blame her and neither did Amber, Olivia, Shay and Roxie. None of us blamed her or any of the Harper's for that matter for Brie's death. Truthfully if it hadn't been for them we would have all suffered Brie's fate.

The sound of screeching tires drug me from my deep thoughts. I found that we had just made it to the spot where we had all agreed to meet at. I looked out the window to see Jeremy, Roxie, Olivia, Amber and Shay joking around and laughing about nothing in particular. Lester stopped Brie's Saab on the side of the rode and then the three of us stepped out from the car.

I immediately noticed Amber's eyes sadden as she looked at Brie's car. She slowly walked in a graceful manner towards the car. She rested her hand softly on the hood and wiped away a few tears from her eyes that would never fall. Not so long after that I felt a small wave of tranquility spread over us. I looked over to Shay and noticed she was trying desperately to calm Amber down. Amber may have had on a composed and collected exterior but I knew on the inside that seeing Brie's car and having to fake her death was hitting her hard.

Amber dabbed her eyes quickly and I was shocked to see a little bit of blood on her fingers. She acted like she didn't notice it and then turned to me, "It seems like just yesterday she was driving us to school complaining about me being late all the time." She said softly.

I nodded, momentarily forgetting the strange sight that I had witnessed. "I know, I was thinking about that the whole ride here." I told her.

We all went into a sad silence for a while but Lester broke it by looking anxiously at the sky. I had hardly noticed that the first signs of dawn were beginning to appear in the sky. The sun was just beginning to rise. We would defiantly have to work quickly now if we wanted to get this done in time.

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**Please review folks :)**


	13. Chapter 12: Hard To Say

**Authors Note:**_ So guess what, I'm on a freaking role today because not only have I posted a one-shot and a brand spanking new chapter of 'Lachrymose' but now you all get a new chapter for 'Midnight Tryst' as well. I'd just like to say thank you to the few reviewers who have stuck by me through the entire story so far and are taking the time to share their thoughts. I also want to thank you silent reviewers as well, I want to thank you for taking the time to read this story and I'd like to encourage you to send a review :) Anyways, it's nearing 1:30am and I'm still awake, typing away. Damn, I'll be tired in the morning but no matter. I'm happy that I'm finally sitting down and getting things done. Next I'm going to finish my next chapter for "Girl With Golden Eyes," it's been sitting in my documents for weeks now unfinished and it's time that I've sat down and worked on it. Anyways, I hope you enjoy the chapter. It's short, and the next few chapters will be. But they'll get longer again as the story progresses. Twelve official chapters in and you know the drill by now, read and review folks._

_- RIP._

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**PLAYLIST**_:_

_Hard To Say_

- by -

The Used

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**Chapter Twelve – Hard To Say**

**Amber POV**

It didn't take us very long to reach the spot where we had all agreed to meet. We needed to find someplace that would be far enough from people that nobody would really see us, but make it not completely impossible to find. This would especially come in handy if the cops would have to come investigate after we called the accident in. We had decided that the best possible spot for the accident was about a couple miles from the turn off that you had to take to go to our campsite in the woods.

When running, it only took us around fifteen minutes to arrive. Usually it would have taken less time but we decided that we wanted to take a short little detour first. Everyone agreed that we all wanted to check out the damage done to our campsite during the vampire attack. It was quickly noted that we would have to clean it up later—our tents were still up but most our stuff was thrown all about in random places because we never had really gotten the chance to actually settle down. There were dried blood stains on the ground from where each of us was attacked. It was a very sad sight to see that the place that we had always loved to go to was in shambles. At the same time, it was a little frightening to know that the place that had always seemed so safe to us, was actually extremely dangerous for us when we hadn't even known it.

After checking out the campsite we finished running to the spot. When we got there Lester, Grace and Matt weren't there yet so we just decided to wait until they showed up. We all kind of agreed silently to relax on the ground a little ways away from the side of the road. This way when Lester, Grace and Matt finally arrived would see us when they arrived but it wouldn't look suspicious in case anyone else passed.

"So what are we supposed to do while we wait?" Olivia asked.

"Well we said that we needed to come up with some cover stories—we need to come up with a story that we can feed everyone at school about Brie." Roxie said.

I tapped my temple for an idea. Slowly a small plan formed inside my head, "I've got it!" I said.

Everyone turned their attention to me. We had fallen into silence since every single on of us had been lost in our thoughts.

"What is your idea?" Shay asked me.

"Okay well this will tie into how we met the Harper's on our trip as well. Okay—we were out exploring the woods on Saturday afternoon when we came across the Harper's cabin. Since we already knew Lester and everything he invited us in to meet Grace and Jeremy. We quickly hit it off and they asked us to hang out with them that night and watch movies which we all accepted the invitation. We ended up crashing in their living room that night because it was too dark to find our way back to the campsite when we finally realized that we had lost track of time." I explained. "We went back to the campsite the next day but the Harper's decided to hang out with us for the rest of the week. Very late Tuesday night Brie said that she had a pretty bad upset stomach and that she wasn't feeling very well. She didn't have any medication with her so she wanted to back home to get some. We took her to her house and dropped her off. She said told us to go back to the campsite and that she was going to sneak into her house, take some medication, get some rest for a couple hours before her parents woke up and then she was going to take her Saab back to the campsite when she woke up but unfortunately on her way back she lost control of the car and drove into the ditch." I finished.

Jeremy shook his head in awe, "Amber, how in the world do you come up with these stories?!" he asked while stifling laughter.

Roxie giggled, "She always did have a big imagination."

"Shut up." I said while sticking my tongue out at her like a three year old.

"You are so weird." Olivia said.

"Yeah but you love me anyways!" I said.

"Wait a moment, there is a small problem with your cover story, Amber." Jeremy said softly.

I turned my attention to him, "What is it?"

"Well," he said. "Obviously we would have medication at our house so why would Brie have to drive home to get it then? People would ask why she didn't just get medicine from our house and that would screw everything up. There can not be any loopholes whatsoever."

Olivia laughed, "Well that's an easy answer. Brie is paranoid about taking medication that isn't her own. Her parents won't think twice about it when we tell them because they know how Brie is. But I have another concern. What are we going to do about Jeremy's call to the police? We can't let them know that it is Jeremy that is calling in. We have to make up a story about how he came upon her accident." Olivia said. She turned to Jeremy, "Do you have any idea what you are going to say to them?" she asked him.

He shook his head slightly, "Well, I hadn't exactly thought about it just yet and--" he trailed off.

Shay squealed slightly, "Oh, I have this one!" We all turned our attention to her, I laughed at her obvious enthusiasm as she told us her plan, "The rest of us will wait a little ways away while Jeremy will stay closer to the area, just in case they have position finders from your call. When the police answer you will say that your name is Bob Culver and you were on your way to attend to some very important business in another city when you passed Brie's accident. Being the gentleman that you are you decided to call in the accident to the authorities, giving the police directions but explain that you have an emergency in another town that you need to attend to and will not be able to wait for the police to arrive. After hanging up your phone we will all leave as quickly as possible and return to the campsite where we will clean it up as fast as possible and make sure that there is no other evidence. If the police show up we will explained that we were 'frantically be awaiting' Brie's return to our campsite but not sure if we needed to call anyone yet." she explained.

"Look's like I am not the only one that can come up with a good cover story." I giggled as I gave my best friend a high five of encouragement.

"Why does my name have to be Bob Culver?" Jeremy whined.

We all held back our laughter—we all knew that Shay wasn't the most creative person in the world at times.

"It was the first name that popped into my head when I thought of the idea." Shay said with a small shrug.

We heard the sound of tires screeching on concrete and looked up to see Brie's blue Saab speeding towards us. As I looked in the driver's seat I half expected Brie to be sitting in it and was quickly disappointed when I saw it was just Lester. Lester stopped the car and then he, Grace and a quiet looking Matt exited from the blue convertible. From Matt's thoughts I knew he was thinking about Brie and how her death had affected us all as well.

I felt a small wave of depression sweep over me as I looked at her cherished car. I made my way as slowly as possible towards the car and rested my pale hand on the car's hood. I felt some tears building up in my eyes but I wasn't so surprised this time when I felt a few blood droplets fall down my cheeks. Not so long after that I felt a small wave of tranquility spread over me. I turned my head over to Shay, '_Amber I know this is hard on you—it is for all of us. I hate seeing you sad like this.' _Shay thought. I had a small nod of my head. I knew she was just trying to make me feel better because she cared. I felt Matt's eyes on me and I turned to him.

I rubbed my eyes slowly and then spoke to him, "It seems like just yesterday she was driving us to school complaining about me being late all the time." I murmured in a small voice that cracked at the end.

Matt nodded, "I know, I was thinking about that the whole ride here." he told me. From his thoughts I knew that he was telling me the truth.

I stared at the car for a long while but I was brought out of my thoughts when I heard Lester's thoughts, '_I know this is hard on you and your friends but we need to hurry. The sun is just beginning to rise and we have work to do before we run out of time completely.' _He thought.

Roxie was next to speak, "So how are we going to do this, we came up with Brie's cover story when we got here—why she would have to go back for her car and we came up with a fake story on why Jeremy called in but wont be there when the police arrive." She said.

"What's the cover story?" Grace asked.

We quickly filled them in on our stories that we had came up with during their absence.

"Perfect!" Matt said as he gave us all a smile.

"Well what do we do with the car? How will we make this look like an accident?" Shay asked.

Jeremy grinned, "That is where super strength comes in handy." He said with a smirk.

"What are we going to do, push the car into a ditch?" Olivia asked sarcastically.

I noticed a small gleam in Grace's eyes as she spoke, "That is exactly what we are going to do." She said.

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	14. Chapter 13: Liar

**Author Note**: _Okay, so here is a brand spanking new chapter. I hope that you all enjoy it. It's in.....SURPRISE!.... Jeremy's point of view!! So I hope you all enjoy his take one some of the things that have happened recently. This is a pretty emotional chapter for the characters, it may not be for you, but it is for the characters. Anyways, I actually really like this chapter so I hope that you enjoy it as well! Also, just to warn you all and let you know, I'm also going to be posting this story up at_ **** _but it will probably be either tomorrow or Friday before I get around to that. I have the same pen-name there are I do here but I just thought I'd let you all know :)_

_**PS**. Check out my website (link on profile.) There is ALL NEW STUFF. I spent nearly two days updating it and I'm really proud of it. There is new character details, pictures and everything. So I hope you all will take the time to check it out!_

_Happy reading folks** :)**_

_**- RIP.**_

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**PLAYLIST:**

_Liar_

- by -

Fireflight

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**Chapter Thirteen – Liar**

**Jeremy POV**

After I created the copy of Brie's body we decided to put it in the driver's seat to make the crash actually look like it was realistic. I noticed that Shay, Amber, Matt, Olivia and Roxie had all stiffened and were exchanging saddened looks with each other when they saw the copy of their best friend. Lester and I were able to push the car up on the right side of the road at a tiny 30 degree angle so when we would push the car, it would go sailing off the road and into the trees that lined the opposite side of the road. With me and Matt being the '_big-strong-men_' we are, the two of us demanded that one of us would get to be the one pushing the car into the tree.

"I want to push it!" Matt whined.

"You got to hotwire the car!" I protested.

"Yeah but you get to call the call in _and _uhmm—" he cut off and tried to think for a moment of something else as an advantage I had over him, but of course he couldn't think of anything else.

"We're even!" I retorted.

I heard Grace sigh. She quickly stepped between us to stop our bickering although I could tell that she thought our argument was quite amusing unlike the other girls, including Shay.

Grace decided to let us come to a compromise, "How about you BOTH push the car into the tree. If you don't behave I'll let the girls push it." She threatened.

Matt and I gasped, "You wouldn't..." Matt cried.

She gave us both a small glare, "Try me."

I turned to Matt, "How about we both push it." I compromised.

"Makes sense," He said with a small smirk, he continued on, "with two '_big-strong-vampires_' we can do twice the damage!"

I chuckled. "Well then let's get it done and over with." I said.

Matt and I positioned ourselves at the trunk of the car. Putting our hands palms down on the trunk, we looked at each other and then looked back to Lester and waited for him to give us the signal to push. It didn't take very long.

"Ready?" he asked us.

We nodded.

"On the count of three." He instructed. "One…two…thr—"

Before he even got to the end of the word '_three_' Matt and I used all of our strength and shoved the car across the rode and into the trees. The car took off with an extremely loud screech from the tires that hurt even _our_ ears. It took seconds to skid across the road before it finally slammed into the trees at an amazing rate of speed. Everything seemed as though it was going in slow motion, even the sounds. Finally, the car hit the trees with a tremendous crash and the sound of scratching metal filled the air.

I looked over to where the girls were standing not even ten feet away from us. Shay looked pained as she watched the car hit the trees. I wondered if maybe it was such a good idea for them to be here after all, it probably wasn't now that I really sat down and thought about it. The girls obviously were upset about this. I was brought from my thoughts when Matt patted me on the back.

"That was awesome!" he said.

I nodded and gave a small smile, "Yeah did you see the way it flew off into the trees!" I said.

"I know!" he replied.

I fierce growl came from behind us. With a gust of wind Matt and I turned around to quickly to find Amber suddenly right behind us. "You guys are so immature." she fumed, snarling once more.

I knew she was furious—and she had every right to be. From what I had gathered from their story, before they were changed Amber and Brie were extremely close to one another, they were like sisters. I knew that losing Brie was extremely hard on Amber, but she kept a brave face. According to Shay, it was really taking a toll of Amber's feelings though. Shay said that even though she had a strong and calm exterior her feelings on the inside were raging with fear, hurt, sadness, grief and even guilt. Although I am not quite sure what she could have to be guilty about. It's not like it is her fault that Vicente decided to attack them or that Brie was already dead by the time Lester and Grace arrived.

"You guys just don't know how to have fun." Matt retorted, ripping me from my thoughts.

'_Bad move, Matt_.' I thought.

Roxie looked at the both of us with anger swimming in her eyes. I knew it was only a matter of time before she blew a gasket or threw something at us with her mind. I had gathered so far that she had quite the temper, "We know how to have fun," she said icily, "but that back there was _not_ fun. That was destroying one of the last pieces of Brie that we have and now it's gone."

Olivia nodded, "You knew that even though that was Brie's car and not ours, the car held a lot of memories for most of us," she said looking at me with a sad smile. "I know you didn't know her Jeremy, but we had a lot of fun times in that car."

Lastly I looked at Shay. She was looking at me in pain, I just wanted to run over to her and wrap my arms around her. I watched as two small blood droplets fell down her face, like I had noticed happen to Amber earlier. I knew that Shay wasn't as close to Brie as Amber and Olivia but Brie's death was taking a toll on Shay as well.

"I thought you were better than that Jeremy. How could you possibly think that _this,_" she gestured to the chaos around us, "is funny…" she whispered sadly.

I felt my face crumple under her gaze. I quickly ran to her side before taking her into my arms without even thinking. Her dry sobs wracked my body as she started to quietly cry. She wasn't able to hold it back any longer. "I'm sorry Shay, I wasn't thinking. I'm so sorry." I pleaded in a whisper to her.

As she cried she grabbed a fist full of my shirt and rested her head against my chest. I looked up and it was then that I noticed that Olivia was crying against Matt as well. He was wearing a similar expression to mine—guilty. Although I knew that they weren't together for someone who didn't know them Olivia and Matt really did look like a couple.

Amber and Roxie were standing off to the side talking in hushed tones. I noticed Amber looking sadly from Shay and me to Matt and Olivia. She subconsciously wrapped her arms around her lower torso, as if it would keep herself from falling apart. From what I understood, neither Amber nor Roxie had a mate, or a '_boyfriend'_ as the humans called their mates. So they didn't have anyone to comfort them at the moment. According to Shay, Roxie just didn't really believe in love after she got her heart broken by her ex-'_boyfriend'_ while Amber had a crush on one of their best friends from school.

'_It must be hard on her now, still loving a human when she's a vampire now_.' I thought sympathetically.

As I thought this, Amber looked up in surprise. I had almost forgotten she was able to read everyone's thoughts. She looked at me with a new type of pain in her eyes, "You have no idea…" she said aloud as she focused down on the ground.

Luckily no one else was paying attention and didn't question our silent conversation.

Before I could reply to her answer, we were interrupted by Lester as he swiftly walked over to me to give me his cell phone. "Here, use my phone and remember the cover story. You can't be here when the cops arrive."

Thankfully Shay had stopped dry sobbing, as did Olivia. Olivia and Matt were now talking quietly with Amber and Roxie while Shay was just standing with me with her arms wrapped around me, sighing softly.

Grace spoke up from where she was standing with Amber and Roxie now, "Hey, the girls and I are going to head back to the campsite. It needs some serious cleaning it up before the cops show up if were going to keep them from being suspicious. It looks like the scene from a horror film!" And it really was. Her words had truth behind them because in reality, that campsite was the site of a murder. Grace continued instructing us, "You three can come there and help us as soon as you're done making the phone call." She said to Matt, Lester and I.

We all nodded in agreement and after a little surprise kiss on the cheek, Shay left and joined the other girls. Then all five of the girls took off in a fast blur as they ran through the forest at vampire speed. After watching them go, I took the phone from Lester's hand and quickly dialed 911. '_Might as well get it over with_.'

"911, what's your emergency?" a ladies voice rang through the phone.

"Uhh—hello my name is uh—" I paused and panicked for a moment as I tried desperately to remember the name that Shay had made up for me. Suddenly it popped into my brain, "—Bob Culver. And, uh well, I was driving down the road while leaving town from a business trip when a came across a very bad car accident. They had crashed into the trees and it looks like it has been here for a while." I said to the lady in a panicked voice. I desperately tried to make it go a little lower than normal so that I could conceal my real voice. I heard a small snicker and saw Matt try and control his laughter as he laughed at my '_unoriginal'_ code name.

"Oh my—well how bad is it?" the lady asked me.

"Well, it looks like the car had swerved off the side of the rode and then crashed into a large portion of trees. The car is flipped over and is completely smashed. It doesn't look good at all." I rattled off.

"Can you please tell me where you are so I can send ambulances?" the lady asked.

I quickly relayed the directions so the ambulance and police knew where to find the accident. Luckily, Lester had checked the GPS in his car earlier and found the exact location of the accident. The woman told me that the police and ambulances would be there in about ten minutes.

She was about to hang up when I stopped her, "I would just like to let you know that I will not be able to be there when the police arrive. I have an emergency involving my mother. That's why I was leaving this way in the first place. You see, she was shackling her roof when she lost her grip on the roof and fell off, breaking her neck and getting a major concussion. Now she is in a coma and I need to get to the hospital as soon as possible." I told her, although obviously it was a lie. Grace, who was more like a mother to me that my human mother had ever been, was perfectly fine. What I told the lady was just a lie so that I didn't have to stay around for the scene of the crime. Besides, falling off a roof would not do any damage to a vampire, right?

'_Speaking of falling, or rather maybe jumping, off roofs…Matt and I should totally do that sometime_.' I thought absentmindedly.

I had almost forgotten that I was still on the phone until the ladies voice broke me from my dangerous thoughts, "Of course sir, I completely understand. Everything will be fine, thank you for calling the accident in. I hope your mother is okay." she said pleasantly.

"Thank you, have a good day miss." I said politely and then hung up the phone.

I handed the phone back over to Lester. Matt was still trying to hold back his laughter.

"Your mother fell off the roof?" he chuckled loudly.

"Shut up it was the first excuse that came to me head." I retorted. "You know what I was thinking though?" I said.

Matt raised an eyebrow, "What?"

"We should try that." I said.

"Try what?" Matt was obviously confused.

I could barely control my excitement. It was difficult, living with two people who were practically adults. Yes, they liked to have fun, but it was different with Lester and Grace. They seemed so mature and grown up. I needed kids my own age to hang out with and now I had it. Matt and I had already become pretty close friends, even though he was a year older than I was. Shay, Olivia, Roxie and Amber were great too.

I decided to let Matt in on my idea since I knew he would be the most apt to try it with me. "We should try jumping off a roof. I mean we are indestructible, right? So jumping off a roof won't do us any harm." I said, proud that I had thought of the whole plan.

Matt's eyes brightened at the idea and I didn't even need to be a mind reader like Amber to know that he was already completely psyched about the plan. I could tell by the way his eyes were slightly unfocused that he was thinking of the possibilities. I let out a small laugh as he spoke enthusiastically to the idea, "That sounds like so much fun! I am totally in."

Out of the corner of my idea I saw Lester playfully roll his eyes at our conversation. He decided not to say anything. Instead he addressed the impending situation, "Well if I heard correctly, the woman on the phone said that police will be here in about ten minutes. So I think that we need to leave the area and hurry to help the girls get the campsite cleaned up. It will only be a matter of time before the cops show up there or your parent's show up to let you guys know the news. Speaking of parents, we still need to talk to your parents about staying with us." Lester said.

Matt and I nodded at Lester, he was right after all. Stopping our chit chat and the jumping off roof conversation temporarily forgotten, we focused on the task that lied ahead of us. It would be difficult, but with all eight of us working together—we could do it.

'_Our new family. It seemed to be working out quite smoothly._' I thought happily. But something still plagued the back of my mind. '_It seems too easy. Of course, things can't always be perfect, can they_?'

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_Alrighty then. So how do you all like seeing Jeremy's point of view? You like, don't like? Let me know. _

_Anyways...this is important: I've gotten really ahead in revising my chapters for this story so I'll make you all a deal. I know I have been getting TONS of views for this story...almost 1000 views so far and I've only gotten 33 reviews total (we're averaging about 2 reviews per chapter right now...) _**If I get...say, five reviews for this chapter, I will update again tomorrow.**_ Yes tomorrow and I mean first thing tomorrow. But I need five reviews, do you think you all can do that for me? _

_So, please, penny for your thoughts? Send a review :) _


	15. Chapter 14: No Surprise

**Authors Note**: _So here it is :) I promised I would update when I got five reviews and I did. Can we try for more this time? Please? Haha. Anyways, I hope you all enjoy this chapter. I'm having some difficulty writing my other stories at the moment, writers block SUCKS huh? So I've been really focusing on this story mainly because I've gotten alot of really good ideas recently for it. So I hope you all enjoy it. Anyways, please review/favorite/alert or whatever it is that you want to do. _

_Happy reading,_

_- Rip._

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**PLAYLIST:**

_No Surprise_

- by -

Daughtry

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**Chapter Fourteen – No Surprise**

**Amber POV**

I glanced between Matt and Jeremy incredulously, all the while trying not the burst into laughter, "You told her that your mother fell off her roof?" I asked Jeremy.

The guys hadn't even been back at the campsite for five minutes when Matt eagerly launched into the tale of what Jeremy had told the police. Jeremy finally answered my inquiry by nodding his head in agreement while looking at the ground, a little embarrassed, "And she bought it?" I asked him.

He nodded again silently.

Shay giggled loudly, "I can't believe she really fell for it!" she said.

"Well I _can _be very convincing at times." Jeremy retorted. "It comes with the vampire charm and charisma."

Roxie and I tried unsuccessfully to hold back our giggles and soon we were full out laughing. Despite the hilarity of the statement, it was very true. Both Lester and Grace had pointed out during mine and Shay's '_Q&A_' session that vampires had a certain charm about them that helped them get what they wanted as I had noticed. Shay and Olivia both rolled their eyes at Jeremy's statement but I knew that inside they thought it was funny as well.

"And you want to know what else?" Matt said excitedly almost jumping up and down like a three year old in a candy store.

From reading his thoughts I already knew what he was going to say. Personally, I found their little plan slightly idiotic but I decided to humor both of them and act like I didn't know what they were about to tell us. Besides, I wanted to see the others reactions. I wonder how Olivia, Roxie and Shay react to Matt and Jeremy throwing themselves off of a roof for an experiment. Roxie would probably laugh but Shay and Olivia would probably get a little pissed off.

Shay raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow at Matt. She was feeling waves of mischief and anticipation coming from both Matt and Jeremy and was a little suspicious at what they were going to say. Suddenly Olivia got a far away look in her eyes. I knew she was having a vision.

"What?" I asked, making myself seem innocent.

Then Olivia came out of her vision with a look of horror on her face, "There is no way I am going to allow you to—" she started to scold but Matt cut her off.

"Jeremy and I are going to try jumping off the roof later! It's going to be awesome!" Matt said excitedly as he pumped his fist in the air. Jeremy copied his fervor and gave Matt's other hand a high five.

Olivia scowled as soon as Matt finished his statement, "You will do no such thing Matthew Joe Perkins. I just had a vision about what you two would be up to and I will have you know that Grace and Lester will not have you jumping off any buildings." She informed the two rowdy boys with a triumphant grin. She glared at Matt. "And neither will I."

Shay was nodding her head firmly, "Me neither." She said looking straight at Jeremy.

'_I knew they were going to react like that_.' I thought. I turned and looked at Roxie. Once again, we both found ourselves trying to repress our laughter at the situation.

Jeremy looked like someone had run over his puppy. From his thoughts I knew it had been his idea. It was kind of funny—I had honestly expected it to be Matt's ideas but the two boys surprised me. It really sounded like something that Matt would've cooked up. Maybe Jeremy and Matt were more alike than I had thought.

"Come on! It isn't like jumping off a roof will hurt us—much less kill us!" Jeremy pleaded.

"It won't even cause a scratch." Matt chimed in.

Olivia rolled her eyes, "You boys are insane."

I laughed, I couldn't help but agree with Olivia's statement.

After a little more arguing, we finally got the boys to agree they wouldn't try jumping off the mansion's roof. But I don't think that was going to stop them from jumping from someplace else. I saw a plan cooking up in Matt's head that he was going to inform Jeremy about later that night. Those boys were crazy, but we finally manage to get their heads back to the task at hand. Before the guys had returned, we girls had taken down all of the tents and had packed them up in Matt's SUV. We had also packed up all of our bags and placed them in Matt's SUV also.

When I was putting my clothes away in my bag, I decided that I might as well change into a different pair of clothes. Since the ones I was wearing were still torn and covered in blood. Once I had changed, I felt a little better. But, I couldn't help but think that we were going to need to go shopping soon. Having a new body had its disadvantages. I had grown a few inches here and there so my clothes weren't exactly fitting as good as they used to. In fact, they were a little too tight. New clothes were going to be a necessity.

"Urgg—as soon as things go back to normal, we need to go shopping. I am getting new clothes." I announced.

'_Things won't ever go back to _normal_, they can't. How can things go back to the way they were now that you are a vampire? It just isn't possible._' my conscious whispered sadly. I couldn't help but agree with it. Things would never be the same for many different reasons now. Hopefully I can save just a shred of my life as a human by going back to school and pretending nothing ever happened.

"Why do we need to go shopping?" Shay asked, not hearing Grace's silent statement. Shay was still able to fit into most of her clothes so it made sense that she didn't know why I was so uncomfortable in mine.

"I grew during the transformation. I'm pretty sure that most of my clothes won't fit me anymore." I said.

"Well, then maybe Friday after school we can go on a shopping trip? Maybe to Knoxville, it's only about a half hour or so away from here—I think." Olivia suggested.

I shrugged, "Sounds good, we can go to one of the malls there and get some new clothes, not just for me, but for all of us. I have money saved up and I needed to do some shopping anyways so it kinda all works out." I said.

Roxie groaned loudly, "Do we have to?" she whined.

I laughed at the worried tone in her voice. Out of the four of us, Roxie had always been the one who hated shopping the most. Olivia and I loved shopping and basically did it at every chance that we got. Shay didn't really care all that much, she would tag along with Olivia and I without any complaints and usually had a good time with us but Roxie was a different story. Sometimes we literally had to drag her, kicking and screaming profanities, into the mall with us. You would think we were sending her out into a firing squad or something. But, Roxie just hated shopping. She said that she especially didn't like shopping with us because of the fact that we picked tons of clothing items for ourselves and for her to try on when we usually didn't even end up buying them. Well, that and then there was also the fact that we spent hours upon hours hanging out and shopping there when we went.

I heard Grace giggle, "Did someone say we are going shopping Friday?" she asked.

Roxie nodded, "Unfortunately."

"Awesome, I'm in!" Grace said happily.

"You have _got_ to be freaking kidding me! You too? You like shopping too?" Roxie asked Grace incredulously.

"I may be a one hundred year old vampire, but I am a _girl_!" Grace replied with a chuckle.

Roxie rolled her eyes, "Traitor." She mumbled under her breath.

I couldn't hold it back any longer, I laughed loud and hard. First I had to hold back my laughter from Matt and Jeremy's plans and now Roxie freaking out about shopping again? It was just too funny to hold everything back anymore. Matt, Jeremy and Lester were watching us in an amused silence. After I finally pulled myself back together I turned to the boys, although a few stray giggles escaped my mouth for a few seconds. "Are you going to come with us?" I asked them.

Matt shook his head, "No way in hell. I made that mistake once—never again." He said.

"I'll pass." Jeremy said.

"Me too." Lester said politely.

"Looks like it will be just us girls!" Olivia cheered. "You have no idea what it like being stuck with two males for almost a hundred years without any girl company. It's pure torture!" she said dramatically, although you could tell that she was just kidding.

"Hey!" Lester and Jeremy yelled out, obviously offended. Grace offered them a teasing smile and they calmed down.

"Heck yes! It sounds like we're going to have a lot of fun without the boys for a day. We can check out all the hotties at the mall without Matt trying to jump them for once." Shay said while giving me a high five.

Roxie groaned again, "Shoot me—please." She mumbled to the boys.

"Roxie, you know that it takes a hell of a lot more than a bullet to kill a vampire." Jeremy joked. Roxie pouted some more while Jeremy gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder before walking over to Shay.

Since we had already finished cleaning up the campsite we were now sitting around the picnic table that sat around the camping site all year round. Suddenly a small buzzing sound filled the air. I looked down when I felt my pocket move slightly. I gasped in surprise, completely forgetting that I had placed my phone in it when I had changed into new clothes. In my pocket, phone was to vibrating several times—signaling someone was trying to call me. I pulled it out of my pocket and everyone fell into an uneasy silence as I answered it.

"Hello?" I asked.

"Amber is that you?" I heard my mother say. I could practically here her crying over the phone. I became slightly worried. Did something happen other than Brie's—wait, _Brie_!

"Yeah mom, what's wrong?" I asked although I already knew what the call was about.

My mother sighed before speaking, "Honey, it's Brie—I don't really know how to say this dear but, A-Amber…s-she was in an a-accident. What happened, h-how come you guys w-weren't with h-her?" my mom asked.

"Brie was in an accident! Oh my god!" I said in fake surprise. Of course I already had known Brie was dead for a few days now but I had to make it sound like I didn't know for my mother's sake. Although I was faking most of my emotions, my sadness wasn't at all. I was still really upset over my best friend's death.

"I'm so sorry sweetie but the EMT's pronounced her dead on the scene." My mother said.

"Oh—god." I said.

"What happened though, I thought Brie was with you kids!" She demanded.

I quickly launched into the tale that we had come up with earlier when we were waiting for Lester, Grace and Matt to arrive with Brie's Saab. I told her about how Brie had supposedly got sick and so we dropped her off and then how she had promised to be back later. I also told her about how we had met up with Lester and his family. It took a while to explain since my mother seemed to interrupt just about every few seconds. When I finally finished I could hear her crying on the other line.

"You must have been so worried!" she said.

I sighed, "We were—you have no idea. Lester, Grace and Jeremy went out to look for her but we decided to all stay here in case she showed up. We were about to call the police but you called instead." I lied.

"It's alright, sweetheart. When do you think you will be home though?" she asked me in a worried tone.

"As soon as we get the campsite picked up. I think Lester and Grace are going to come with us because they want to speak with you guys about something." I said.

Before my mother had called we had come up with the perfect cover story on why we were going to stay at the Lester and Grace's house on a more permanent basis. Lester also told me that if need be, we could use my power to help convince them by telling them exactly what they wanted to hear.

"Is something wrong? Are you all okay?" she asked, in pure panic mode.

I had to hold back a laugh, "We are fine. Relax mom, it has to deal with school actually." I told her.

"Oh, okay. Well I guess I will see you when you get here." She said.

"Bye hun, love you." She said.

"Bye mom." I said and then hung up my phone.

After the phone call was disconnected it seemed as if everyone sprung into action at once. "Lester and I are going to run back to the house and get the car and then we will meet you back here. When we get back here Lester and I will follow Matt's jeep to each of your houses to talk to your parents." Grace said.

Matt nodded, "Sounds like a plan, how many people can fit in your car?" he asked.

"I'd say about five people, maybe six if you squeeze four in the backseat." Lester said.

"Well, usually I can fit six people in my Jeep like you can in your car." Matt said. "But, since we have all of our stuff in there and we will probably putting extra stuff into it to bring to your house, I may only be able to fit a four or five total." he explained.

"Well, I can ride with Lester and Grace." Jeremy volunteered. "I also have a truck back at the house that I drive if we need to haul anything else." he pointed out.

Olivia shook her head, "I need to bring my Lexus with me, so we can use that to put all of our junk in as well."

Lester chuckled, "It's a good thing that we have a huge garage, does anyone else have cars they need to bring with them?" he asked sarcastically.

Shay, Roxie and I shook our heads. The three of us had our license, but our parents hadn't gotten us cars to drive yet. Roxie and I weren't able to drive without an adult yet since we were not sixteen and three months but Shay had already passed being sixteen and three months so she had her _real _yet_ probationary _license—which is what I liked to call our license's.

**(A/N: Getting your license is different in every state. I'm not exactly sure if this applies for Tennessee, but just go with it. The law for what age you can get your license is constantly changing all the time anyways. You can never keep up.) **

Shay spoke up, "I'll ride with Lester and Grace too—that way there is more room in the SUV and Lexus for our stuff. We can use those two to put all of our stuff in."

Jeremy gave her a small smile which she returned with a small blush. I read their thoughts and quickly realized that they were both falling for each other—and hard too. I had to hold back my grin. At least unlike Olivia and Matt they actually tried to flirt—Olivia and Matt were completely clueless that they liked each other. And I had known that even _before _I could read their minds.

"Alright, so is everything decided? From what I understand Lester, Jeremy, Shay and I are riding in our car there and back. Roxie, Amber, Matt and Olivia are riding in Matt's Jeep to your houses but Olivia is going to drive her car back to the house separately." Grace drawled out, making sure everyone knew the plan. Everyone nodded in agreement so Grace decided to continue, "Jeremy and Shay can just follow us back to the house while the rest of you wait here." Grace said cheerfully.

While they were gone the rest of us which was Roxie, Olivia, Matt and I made sure that everything was all packed up in the Jeep. We double checked twice to make sure that we didn't leave anything behind before the four of us climbed in the SUV to wait for Lester, Grace, Shay and Jeremy to return. After about ten minutes of us playing a very exciting game of _Extreme Rock Paper Scissors_, we saw a shiny black car pull into the campsite. I felt my jaw drop in amazement.

Matt let out a low whistle when he saw the car, "Holy shit, they have a really freaking nice car."

"What is it?" I asked.

Matt suddenly smirked, "Well, Merce, that would just so happen to be a 2007 _Bentley_ Continental FLYING SPUR. It's estimated to be worth about seven-hundred and sixty thousand dollars." It didn't escape my attention how Matt stressed the word '_Bentley'_ when he spoke but I ignored it because I was so shocked about the price tag for the car. My parents were rich—but they didn't own anything _that _nice.

Grace, Lester, Shay and Jeremy all piled out of the car and turned to look at us. Lester rubbed the hood of the car with gentle care and love. You could tell that this car was his prized possession.

"After living for almost two hundred years you will find that you will get a lot of money, especially if you save it up for a while. Then you just decide to blow it on things like this—how do you think we were able to pay for the house to be remodeled?" Lester said with a shrug.

Grace laughed at our surprised expressions, "Don't worry in a few decades you will be so rich that you won't know what to do with all the money you have."

"Yeah it will practically be pouring out your ass." Jeremy added with a smirk.

"Jeremy! Watch your language!" Grace said sternly.

He shrank back a bit at the tone of her voice, "I'm sorry Grace." He mumbled to her. Suddenly, Grace smiled and we could tell that she had just been fooling around with him.

I giggled slightly and saw that the others were laughing too.

"Okay well can we go now?" Roxie asked.

"Defiantly." Lester said. He grinned, "Let's see if you can keep up." he teased.

Matt smirked, "Oh, I'm sure I won't have a problem with that."

Jeremy got a wicked grin on his face, "You just wait. You will probably be pleasantly surprised when you see how Lester drivers—Grace is even worse."

We all got into our cars and then pulled out of the campsite at a rate that was way faster than what I was used to. When I looked over at the speedometer, I noticed that we were almost going sixty miles over the speed limit, just to keep up with Lester. Matt was driving around 115 by now. Apparently vampires have a need for speed because even Lester was speeding. Surprisingly their speeding didn't bother me as much as it should have. In fact, I enjoyed their speeding as well as everyone else did.

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_What do you think? You like? Please click the green review button, penny for your thoughts? I'd LOVE to hear what you have to say. And I almost always reply in the reviews so if you have questions, comments, anything I promise that I WILL answer them as long as it doesn't give away too much of the story :) Thanks for reading guys. Let's try for a few more reviews on this chapter!_


	16. Chapter 15: A Place In This World

**Authors Note:** _Hello all, sorry for the long wait but life has just got in the way of things recently and I really got into a new story that I wrote and completed in nearly two/three days, SOO...my apologies for the late update. But, I hope you like this chapter. I'm really proud of this one, so I hope you enjoy it. Well, I'm not going to have a really long note this time, so enjoy. Check out the website (brand new updates under the upcoming stories page), review and look out for my new story which will hopefully be posted by the end of the week :)_

_Love,_

_RIP :)_

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**PLAYLIST:**

_A Place In This World_

- by -

Taylor Swift

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**Chapter Fifteen – A Place In This World**

**Amber POV**

Before going into the first house, Matt used his power to change our eye color to violet like regular vegetarian vampires since we didn't have the power to change our eye color back to normal yet like Lester, Grace and Jeremy could. We were lucky that Matt had the power that he did. If he didn't, there was no way that we could get away still looking human. If we were to walk into our houses with glowing red eyes, our parents would flip out. It was sad though because none of our parents even noticed that our eye color had changed to purple. Granted, it wasn't really noticeable but you would still think that your parents of all people would notice a change like that. We had been prepared to feed them a story that Grace had some purple contacts lying around their house and we decided to try them on but since nobody noticed, we just decided not to bring it to their attention. The less that our parents knew or suspected—the better.

Instead of telling our parents the excuse that we had originally came up with, we just decided to each asked our parents if we could move in with the Harper's and then Shay would send them a wave of acceptance and joy to make them agree to it. I would check their thoughts for any loopholes but didn't find any. They didn't suspect a thing.

I couldn't help but laugh at all of our parent's thoughts about the Harper's about how beautiful they were. Of course our parents already knew Lester but they had never met Grace or Jeremy. The Harper's found it quite amusing to try and dazzle our parents. It was quite hilarious because one minute the parents would be thinking about one thing and then the Harper's would try and dazzle them and the next moment our parent's thoughts would scatter completely. It was hard not to laugh and Shay wasn't helping by sending waves of amusement over towards me as a small joke.

The only thing our parents were suspicious about was how young Lester and Grace were. They thought that there was no way that Lester and Grace could be married and have a kid that was less than ten years younger than them. There was also the fact that Grace was still in high school. Lester had previously told them that he was twenty-three but he had not given them any other information about his personal life previously so our parents were suspicious when he told them his family's story.

Lester quickly explained that Grace was nearing twenty years old and that they got married nearly two years ago because they didn't want to wait until after Grace graduated to get married. He told them that he had been so in love with Grace that he had thought, 'Why wait? As soon as Grace turns eighteen, we should get married'.

Lester also explained that Grace started school later than most people did and that was why she was almost twenty and still in highschool. He then went on to explain that Jeremy was Grace's younger cousin—not his and Grace's kid—and that Jeremy's parents had died in an accident about a year and a half ago. Not having any other family, Grace and Lester decided to take him in as a part of their own family. He wasn't their kid but Jeremy sometimes referred to them as his parents because they acted like it. After telling our parents all of this, they seemed to relax and agree to our idea. They fully believed everything that Lester had told them, much to our relief.

After we finished talking to each of our parents, we each grabbed our things from our own houses as quickly as possible. We tried to only bring things that were extremely important to us and to use since we would probably end up buying new things when shopping anyways. We packed up our things in Matt's Jeep, Lester's Bentley and Olivia's Lexus. When everything was packed up, we met up in my driveway, since my house was the last house that we had stopped at. We changed the plan a little bit since we had all decided to bring a little bit more stuff than what we probably should have. With the three cars packed full we split into three groups: me, Roxie and Matt in the SUV again, Lester and Grace in their Bentley and then Shay, Jeremy decided to ride Olivia her Lexus since the Bentley was literally stuffed full with our stuff.

We got back to our new house around seven o'clock that evening. We were able to unload the cars and take all of our belongings to our respective rooms in record time. I decided to keep the room that Grace had chosen to put me in when I was going through the transformation. For some reason I had an odd attachment to the room. We had to clean it up and get new sheets for the bed and everything but it was worth it. I thought it was ironic how Grace had chosen a room for me that fit me perfectly—green was one my favorite colors and the whole room was green, blue, white and beige. I was completely in love with my room.

It seemed everyone else was in love with their rooms as well. Olivia had a room that was a dark green and crimson on the third floor. Matt's room was right next to hers and was in a tan, brown and white colored scheme. Shay had a soft mint green room on the second floor that was next to Jeremy's grey one. Roxie's room was on the other side of mine, also on the second floor, and was a black and white color scheme. Mine and Roxie's rooms were across from Shay and Jeremy's rooms. Grace had defiantly out done herself with the rooms.

It hadn't taken me very long to put most of my stuff away thanks to my new found vampire speed so now I was sitting Indian style on my bed going through some boxes that I had just shoved random stuff in during my haste to get everything packed up. I had set up my huge stereo system from my old house in my new room and was currently blasting Brooke Hogan's '_Hey Yo_!' while just loosing myself in the song. The familiar lyrics rang through the air and I couldn't stop the smile that crossed my features.

'_Thank god Grace told us that the walls that were installed in each of the bedrooms were sound proof_.' I thought happily. '_If they weren't, I would be hearing Roxie's screamo drifting threw the air at all hours of the night as well as day._' I loved screamo music, but I also liked listening to softer stuff as well. Roxie didn't, screamo was the only thing that she listened to. _Bring Me The Horizon_ and _The Devil Wears Prada_ were her all time heroes.

I began to sing along to 'Hey Yo!' because I loved the song. I got up and bounced around for a little while before I finally calmed down and sat back down on my bed and reached for another box of stuff. I sucked in a large gasp when I came across the picture frame and a plastic bag filled with photographs that were lying on top.

The picture frame was simple. It was silver with black glittery suns on it and had the words 'Friends' and 'Summer' written on it in black Calligraphy. The picture it held was one of my favorites. It was a picture of Roxie, Shay, Brie, Matt, Olivia and me. We were walking down the road with our hands intertwined together and large, identical grins on our faces. My mother had taken that photograph just a few days before school had started. It was our last picture of the summer. I smiled and placed the frame on my bedside table before I moved on to the bag of pictures. I already knew what they were from. They were pictures taken over the summer, my mother had obviously gotten them printed out while I was camping because I hadn't seen them yet.

The song changed once more but this time it Savage Garden's '_Truly Madly Deeply_' that came through my stereo's big speakers. It fit the moment perfectly. My throat closed up as I saw the first one, Brie and I with our arms wrapped around each other's shoulders grinning at the camera. The next few that I looked at were almost identical to that only it featured a different friend each time. There were some pictures were we tried to get all six of us in but it turned out looking hilarious. Finally the pictures started to drift away from me and the 'Super Six' to pictures of my school friends. I gasped seeing Lola, Ethan and Xander's faces. I hesitated going on to the next set of pictures because I knew what awaited me.

My throat closed up and my dead heart dropped when I saw the pair of bright blue eyes that I was longing to see more than anything. But it also reminded me of one thing—he was still human. The first picture of the next ten or so photographs was a full body shot of none other than Bentley James Rivera wearing just a pair of swimming trunks, showing off his muscles while standing on the dock next to the creek that we often went swimming in during the summer. I oogled the picture for a while and thought about how I hadn't been able to keep my eyes from checking him out that day. No matter how hard I had tried I couldn't keep my traitorous eyes from wandering over to his form every five minutes or so.

The next picture was one body of the two of us. I had my arms wrapped tightly around his muscular waist while he had an arm wrapped tightly around my shoulder, his head leaning on mine slightly. Shay had taken it—teasing me with her eyes the entire time. The next was a picture that I had taken myself. It was another picture of Bentley and I except for this time it was just a profile shot of both of our faces pressed together with huge grins lighting up our faces. We were both wet from swimming in the creek but we didn't care.

I didn't get the chance to look through the rest of the pictures because with my extra sensitive hearing I heard light footsteps making their way towards my door.

Whoever it was stopped and was just about knock. I knew the footsteps were too light to be a man's footsteps, so I knew it was one of the girls in the house. I dug into their mind thought to find out _who _was at my door.

'_Amber, I know that you are in my head so will you please open the door. I need to ask you about something. It's important. Can I come in?' _Olivia asked in her head.

"Come on in Olivia." I said without getting up from my bed.

Half a second later I saw from the corner of my eye that the door was cracking open and an extremely hesitant looking Olivia was walking into my room. I sat up on my bed and patted down on a spot in front of me for Olivia to sit down on. Olivia quietly walked over to my bed and sat down where I had previously pointed at.

"What's up?" I asked her.

She sighed and didn't speak for a while. I was about to asked again when she spoke, "Read my thoughts because I don't want to say it out loud in case the others hear." Olivia said in a small whisper. It was so quiet I almost didn't catch it—even with my good hearing.

"Alright." I said.

The thought that rang through her head almost sent me into a state of shock and laughter at the same time, '_I think—I think that I might like Matt.'_

I shrieked with surprise and happiness. Olivia looked taken aback at first but then looked embarrassed.

"Are you serious?!" I asked excitedly.

"I think so." Olivia replied.

"Thank god, finally you realized it. All of us have known for a long time. It's so obvious that you two liked each other for a long time. Just so you know, I know this more than ever now because I can read your thoughts—not just yours but his as well." I said.

'_Seriously? I mean, you aren't just making that up to make me feel better?' _she asked me with her thoughts.

"Of course I'm not." I said. "It's the truth." I promised.

"Okay." She said with a small smile.

I grinned back at her, "Are you going to ask him out?" I asked.

'_I can't do that.' _She thought sadly. Oh no, back to her thoughts again.

"And why not?" I asked her.

I watched as she bit her lips and then her thoughts rang in my head again, '_Because I can't do anything that will ruin our friendship. And besides what if he likes me but doesn't like me enough to be with me. I don't think I can handle that type of rejection. Especially from him.' _

I tapped my temple, "I can read minds remember, I know how he likes you and trust me he likes you enough to be with you. Hell I knew that he liked you that way even before I could read minds, we all did!" I said. "You were the only ones that were oblivious to it."

"Are you sure?" she asked out loud.

"Just ask him—if you don't you will regret it." I told her truthfully. "And if you are that nervous use your power to check into your future to see how things will go." I told her.

She smiled, "That is a good idea…but well I have one more thing to say before I leave, and you need to listen to me for once."

"I do listen to you!" I shot back. She gave me a stern look before I asked, "What is it?"

Olivia gave me an evil grin but didn't speak out loud. Instead she thought whatever she was going to tell me instead and truthfully—I'm glad she did. '_I think you should tell Bentley that you like him_.'

I shook my head, "Olivia, I can't do that." I told her.

"Why not—I'm doing it. If I can then you can." She reasoned.

"It's not the same." I argued.

'_Yes it is, you two are friends—I would go so far as saying best friends—and you like him and by the way, I think he likes you too. But you won't tell him how you feel about him because you are afraid that your feelings will ruin your friendship with him. You are also afraid of rejection—like me. It is exactly the same.' _She told me.

"You are forgetting one itsy bitsy tiny thing." I said bitterly.

"What?" she asked.

'_He's __human._' I hissed at her in her mind.

Her excited face that she had been wearing previously fell into a small scowl, "Shit, I forgot about that. Well, darn it. That screws things up majorly, doesn't it?" Olivia said.

"You think?" I retorted sarcastically.

"Look, I'm sorry about all this, Amber. I probably shouldn't have even said anything about it but I really did forget. I'm still getting used to the whole vampire thing." Olivia said.

"I know." I told her. "I didn't mean to take my anger and frustration about the situation out on you. It's just that is kind of bugging me right now." I said. "Especially after I found these," I handed her the photographs I had been looking at before she had walked into my room to talk to me. Olivia's eyes widened in surprise as she looked at the pictures that I had taken over the summer.

"I understand how these pictures could upset you," Olivia said, sitting the pictures gently down on my bed. "But, what was it that was bothering you _before _you found the pictures?" she asked.

'_It's bothering me that he is human while I'm a vampire._' I replied to her through my thoughts. '_I had known before that we couldn't be together because there was the possibility that he didn't feel the same but you know, I still sort of hoped that maybe someday we would somehow get together but now that idea has been blown out of the water._'

"I'm sorry Amber, I really, really am." Olivia said, wrapping her arms around me in a hug. I wrapped my arms around her body and sniffled softly for a few seconds before I pulled away.

"Don't be—it isn't your fault. I love being a vampire but sometimes, I don't know…it's just so different." I said with a heavy sigh. I decided to change the subject. '_Why don't you go talk to Matty_.' I thought.

Olivia nodded, '_Are you sure you're okay?_' she mentally asked me softly. I nodded. '_Well, alrighty then. __Wish me luck.' _She thought and then with a small wave she quietly out of the room.

As soon as she was gone I plopped back down on my bed with a thud and didn't even bother looking at the pictures anymore. In fact, I shoved them back into the box and hid it under my bed. Pictures of Bentley were the _last _thing I wanted to see at the moment. I went to go over to my stereo to turn it off when Taylor Swift's '_A Place In This World_' started playing. The song was too fitting—I couldn't turn it off.

Things just had gotten a hell of a lot more complicated. Now not only did I have to watch Shay and Jeremy flirt, but I would have to watch Olivia and Matt be all over each other all the time now too. It wasn't that I wasn't happy for them, I was. I was _really _happy that they could finally be together. It was more of the fact I was jealous that they had each other, that their situation was so simple. They could have what I would never have. Now Roxie and I would be the only ones in the house without someone because it was only going to be a matter of time before Jeremy and Shay were together officially. I'm pretty sure that Roxie could care less about finding a mate.

I thought back to earlier today when I had heard Jeremy thinking about Bentley and I and how I liked him. I didn't even how Jeremy even knew about Bentley and I but I thought that it was probably Shay that had told Jeremy about us. Well he had been right about one thing—it _was _hard to be a vampire and love a human. I tried to ignore my thoughts about Bentley and tried to focus on my thoughts about school. We were returning the next day after all.

'_I'll get to see Bentley tomorrow!_' I thought happily. '_Wait, no thoughts about Bentley! Stop it Amber!_' Instead, I focused on a safer topic. '_I wonder if any of the humans will notice that we look different? I wonder if they will notice that our eye color is violet now, different than our natural colors. God I wonder what they would do if we kept our red eyes?' _I giggled slightly at that last thoughts '_Now with my mind reading powers I will be able to find out what the people at school _really _think about me and my family. This is defiantly going to be interesting.' _I thought.

I spent the rest of the night thinking about school and how different it would be going back as a vampire. Before I knew it the sun was rising and I had to get ready for school. I knew that because of the sun I would have to cover up as much as possible. Luckily, a cold front had moved into the area and putting on a bunch of clothing wouldn't look strange.

I quickly pulled out a long sleeved black v-neck that still fit me and put a lacy white undershirt beneath it. I pulled on a pair of tight dark washed jeans and pulled on a pair of my black pointed toe high heeled boots that I normally would not wear for fear that I would trip over something. But now that I was a vampire, I had a new found sense of balance and grace. Heels were actually starting to appeal to me. I slipped them on and then went into the bathroom and straightened out my black colored hair to perfection.

Next was make-up: I decided to use the smoky-eye treatment by using blacks, grays and whites on my eyes. I put on blood red lip stick that stood out against my deathly pale vampire skin. I didn't bother with foundation since the transformation had changed my complexion. I was extremely happy about the fact that my face would never need foundation ever again thanks to my new found beauty.

Just moments after I had completed my look and grabbed the blood red purse that my parents had gotten me for Christmas the previous year, Shay and Roxie burst through my door with smiles on their faces. Shay was dressed similar to me but was wearing a plain sky blue long sleeved shirt with matching blue ballet flats and fitted dark washed jeans while Roxie was decked out in a layered concert t-shirt, black skinny jeans and her usual black ragged converse.

Shay grinned at me, "That looks really good on you Merce. And I am totally loving the heels that you are wearing right now." She complimented.

"I have to agree. I like them too and normally I hate girly things." Roxie admitted.

I smiled at them, "Thanks." I said. I checked the clock by my bedside table, "But we need to leave soon before we are late. We have a bit of a longer drive to school than usual."

"If Matt drives 120 again I doubt it we will ever be late." Roxie pointed out.

Shay laughed at Roxie's sarcasm while I rolled my eyes. Then, together we all walked out of my room and went downstairs to the living room where everyone was already gathered. On the way I asked a question, "So what cars are we taking to school today?" I asked.

"The SUV and the Bentley." Roxie answered. She turned to me. "Grace is taking me and you to school while Matt is taking Shay, Jeremy and Olivia. We decided this while you were taking your sweet time getting ready."

I scowled at her sarcasm, "Shut up."

When we got downstairs I saw Olivia and Matt standing by the front door with goofy smiles plastered on their faces and looking at each other. Jeremy and Grace were looking at them with smiles on their faces from the end of the staircase's banister. I dug into Olivia and Matt's thoughts to see if they were together or not.

'_I can't believe Olivia really likes me! I can't believe we are actually _together_ now. I never would have thought that she would like me as anything other than just a friend. Wow, I'm so freaking lucky.' _Matt thought.

I smirked slightly and moved onto Olivia's thoughts.

'_God, I'm so glad he said that he would go out with me. Amber, I know you are probably listening and I just want to say thanks for talking me into telling him that I liked him—he likes me too and we are together now. It's basically all because of you. So thanks, so much.' _She thought and turned briefly to give me a wink before turning back to Matt where they resumed talking about the upcoming school day that they were both dreading.

By the time I reached the bottom of the stairs where Grace and Jeremy were waiting for us I was grinning from ear to ear. I was completely ecstatic about them Olivia and Matt together. I mean it was about _time _they got together. I almost didn't notice that Lester had entered the room until he spoke, "So are you ready to go to school?" he asked.

We all nodded.

"Of course!" Shay said.

Grace chuckled nervously, "You know I haven't been to school since I was human and that was over a hundred years ago." She said.

"Don't worry you will do fine dear." Lester said encouragingly while giving her a small kiss on the forehead.

Not long after that we all walked out towards to Bentley and the SUV and climbed inside. Roxie, Grace and I rode in the Bentley while Shay, Jeremy, Olivia and Matt rode to school in the SUV. As we left, Lester went out on the porch and waved to us before going back inside to get ready to go to work. Grace had told us that Lester worked at a small insurance agency. It had started off as a bet between Jeremy and Lester a few years back but Lester actually went on to enjoy his job. He was good what he did and loved going to work everyday.

The seven of us soon took off in the direction of the school. Grace decided to follow Matt since she wasn't exactly where the school was. We were going over one hundred miles per hour even though we were not running late.

A little worry peaked up inside of me. I had a feeling that something major was going to happen today. Whether or not that was a good or bad thing I wasn't quite sure. I sighed heavily before I looked out of the window of Grace's car.

"Relax dear," Grace said in a cheerful voice. "Everything will work out fine. If you guys feel like you can't handle it, we can always have you homeschooled." she teased. I couldn't stop the smile that graced my features. Hopefully it would stay there for the entire ride to the school.

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**Enjoy all :) Reviews are LOVED!**


	17. Chapter 16: We Change, We Wait

**Authors Note:**_Well hello again, all :) I want to thank each and every one of you for the amazing reviews that I had been getting. Honestly, when I started this story, I wasn't sure what to expect but you guys have been very supportive and have given me fantastic advice when I have asked for it. So, here is your reward, a chapter in Bentley's POV. Many of you have been asking what has happened to him or when he is coming back into the story, well here is it :) Now. So, I really hope you enjoy this chapter. I've worked extra hard on it to make sure that it was perfect. _

_Now, I want to ask for a favor in return, since I made a Bentley chapter for you all...I'd like to ask you all to read my Ghost Hunters International fanfiction. It's called _'GHI: It's The Fear_'. It isn't that long, three chapters have been posting and I've gotten zero response from it. There is still four chapters left to go (like I said, it isn't very long...) but I would really like someone to look over it and just give some of their thoughts on it. You don't even have to be a Ghost Hunters or GHI fan to understand everything, alot of the stuff is explained within the paragraphs and if you have ANY questions at all after reading it, I would be happy to answer them. _

_Also, I have LiveJournal now. Look me up and add me if you have your own blog there, I'm '**parinormallove**__' :) I would have used musicormisery, but my sister made up the account for me and picked out the username, she was making fun of my celeb crush on Dustin Pari. :) lol. I also have a community for GHI and GH non-slash/het fanfictions. (Because it seems as if everything on there is for slash pairings...) If you want to, feel free to join and post it there. The community is called_ **'ghi_gh_fics'**_. But, I'm pretty sure it'll show up if you type 'Ghost Hunters' or 'GHI' in the search box. _

___Okay, this is DEFINITELY enough of me talking. So on with the chapter :)_

_Peace,_

_- RIP._

_

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_

**PLAYLIST:**

_We Change, We Wait_

- by -

The Maine

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**Chapter Sixteen – We Change, We Wait **

**Bentley POV**

Waking up this morning, for some reason that was unknown to me, I had a feeling bubbling in the pit of my stomach that something really bad was going to happen today. Normally I was not the type to be superstitious but somehow I couldn't just shake this feeling off. I almost dreaded getting out of my warm and comfy to get ready for school. But somehow, I'm not sure exactly how, I talked myself into getting out of bed and going through my usual morning routine.

As I was taking a shower, I aloud my mind to think over the events that last few days had brought. Some strange things had been happening to me lately and I wasn't really sure why. Sometimes I would just get these feelings where I would just, _know _something and I had no idea why or how I knew it in the first place. For example, I was setting the dinner table when I turned to my mother and said, "It's grandma—she'll keep you on the phone for about fifteen minutes, do you want me to put food on the table too?" Mom had looked at my funny before the phone rang. Turned out it was my mom's mother and since she was a chatty person, she kept my mother on the phone for fifteen minutes and true to my word I put dinner on the table by the time my father and brother came into the kitchen to eat. Mom didn't ask me how I knew what was going to happen—heck _I _didn't even know what was happening.

Besides the freaky phone call thing, I am starting to become stronger—although I haven't been going to the gym to work out. I haven't even been lifting weights. My endurance, speed, agility and healing is changing too. I cut my finger yesterday on accident and within a few minutes it looked as good as new, like there hadn't been a cut in the first place. I have no idea how it was happening either. Oh, and don't even get my _started_ on my hearing. It's almost like I have been hearing things that I probably shouldn't be hearing. I was in my room listening to music when I heard a car pull up to my house. I heard my father talking on his cell phone to a business partner at work. They were arguing about some business project and although I was nearly two stories above them plus maybe thirty feet away—I could hear every word that they were saying—although, it never did last very long. Sometimes I could hear weird things and other times I couldn't. It was as if it came and went. Whatever it was, it was really strange. I don't know what's going on with me. I think I may be going psychotic or something.

I got out of the shower and quickly picked out my clothes. I was the type of person who really didn't care what they wore from their closet. I picked out the first things that my hands got a hold of and threw them on before I put on my usual converse. One of my friends had once, jokingly of course, made a comment that my shoes made my feet look like a clowns feet, especially when wearing skinny jeans. But in all honestly I didn't care if they did or not.

After I was dressed I made my way down to our kitchen do get something to eat. My stomach was grumbling loudly. That was another odd thing; it seemed as if I was always hungry. But I guess that was just a teenage boy thing. I hate tons and tons of food but never gained a pound. I definitely wasn't one of those boys who ate a ton and was over weight. I was lucky because I was skinny but still had muscle on me.

"Hey do you need a ride to school?" I heard a familiar deep voice ask when I entered the kitchen.

I looked up to see my older '_brother' _Ryan, sitting at the table finishing up a bowl of cereal. Well, technically Ryan isn't really my brother. Ryan is actually my adoptive brother. He's older than me by two years. In fact, he actually just turned eighteen a month ago and is graduating highschool this year. Lucky him, I still have two and a half more years of highschool left.

In case you are wondering, I was adopted. My parents died when I was really young, or so I was told. After my parents death their closest friends, Paul and Terèsa Rivera, took me in. Paul and Terèsa have taken care of me ever since. I don't really know anything about my adoptive parents other than their last name was Hawthorne. So really, my name is Bentley James Hawthorne-Rivera. It's long and complicated—which is the reason that I don't add 'Hawthorne' in my name when people ask. My adoptive parents are very secretive when we are discussing my birth parents, so like I mentioned earlier, I don't really know much about them.

I turned to grin at my brother, happy that he was offering. "Yeah I do, thanks Ryan."

"Okay. Well, I'm leaving in about fifteen minutes. Be ready by then." Ryan said before he placed his cereal bowl in the sink and then went upstairs, leaving me all alone in the kitchen.

Having already gotten my things for school ready earlier, I decided that I would fix myself some breakfast. I wasn't much of a cook but I could manage to make something semi-edible if I really wanted to. I reached into the freezer and pulled out some breakfast hot pockets. I smiled slightly as I got out the box. I knew Amber was in love with these things. I teased her all the time saying that she could live on the stupid things. I put the hot pockets in the microwave—I was hungry so I decided to cook two for myself. As I watched the hot pockets spin around in the microwave I allowed myself to think about Amber again.

Amber was the only girl I was really close to. I mean sure I was friends with Roxie, Shay, Gabrielle, Avery, Lola and the rest of the girls that sat with us at lunch but Amber was different. I would go as far as saying Amber was my best friend. I knew that I could tell Amber anything and she wouldn't judge me for it. Besides just being my best girl friend (not girlfriend, she's a friend that is a girl), I also had a crush on her. I have had one on her for the longest time, probably since the first time I met her. Ever since Ethan and Lola found out they have been bugging me to ask her out. I would, but I am just too afraid of rejection.

The beep of the microwave ripped me from my thoughts. I took the plate from the microwave and quickly ate my food, not even waiting for it to cool. Strangely the hotness didn't even bother me. Usually I would have burnt my tongue if I ate them right after taking them from the microwave but this time, it didn't.

After eating, I put my plate in the sink and then waited for my brother to drive me to school. I suddenly saw Ryan appear suddenly at the bottom of the stairs, "Hey little bro, are you ready?" he asked me.

I nodded, "Yeah." I told him. "Let's go."

As we walked towards his truck I couldn't shake off that incredibly chilling the feeling again. All I knew was that something was going to go horribly wrong today. Somehow I hoped that I was wrong and that I was just imagining things.

Little did I know that my feeling was completely right.

I was sitting in second period—studyhall for me—when I first saw them. Ever since right before first period, all I have been hearing about is everyone talking about the two gorgeous new kids who had basically mysteriously appeared overnight. Nobody had known that there would be new kids coming. They were also talking about Amber and her friends. They said they were different somehow but they weren't sure how.

As I took my seat in studyhall, I listed half heartedly while the studyhall teacher began babbling about how one of this history classes would be using the studyhall classroom (which was just a regular classroom) as well since their teacher had left with an emergency. I rested my head against the top of the desk I was sitting at—reveling in the coldness of it. I usually slept all through studyhall—I mean, what else was I going to do? I didn't have any homework to work on or any book to read. Just seconds before the bell rang, two completely gorgeous girls walked gracefully into the classroom. At first I thought they were the new students but as soon as they started to sit down into their seats I felt my breath hitch. They defiantly were not new students and they defiantly didn't have this class with me normally either. It was Amber and Roxie.

'_They look so different.' _I thought.

Amber had always been a sort of pale, but she always had a light tan on her skin. Now she was so pale that if I didn't know any better I would say that she was deathly ill. Her jet black hair looked more shiny and alive than usual. Her new hair brought out her incredibly striking indigo eyes.

'_Wait, indigo eyes? Amber has _green_ eyes_.' I thought.

Her figure had changed and became more defined. She also looked taller somehow but I shook that thought away when I realized she was wearing pointy toed black boots.

'_Since when does she even wear heels? I thought she despised those things!' _I wondered.

Roxie looked different too. But, it wasn't just their looks that were different. It was much more than that. Mostly, it was the way that they held themselves that shocked me so much. It was like they all of a sudden had so much confidence in themselves. I knew for a fact that Amber had always been extremely self-conscious about her looks but now it was like all of that have flown out the window. Roxie was the same way. For a change, Roxie didn't look as goth as she normally did. Something strange was going on.

"Do you feel that?" I heard Roxie say quietly, although I knew for a fact that she wasn't talking to me.

Curious as to what Roxie was talking about, my head snapped up and my eyes made their search around the room to find the two girls. When I found them, I was confused. Roxie was clearly whispering, but I could hear her all the way on the opposite side the room where I was sitting. Great—I knew what that meant. Obviously I was having problems with my freaky hearing again.

"Feel what?" I heard Amber say in reply.

Roxie shrugged and looked around the room. I looked closer and saw that her eyes were narrowed in confusion. "I don't really know. I just have this really weird feeling that there is something else in here with us." Roxie said.

Amber took a deep breath and then her face scrunched up. "Roxie, we aren't the only things in here." she laughed quietly. "There are at least thirty other teenagers in here with us."

Roxie shook her head, "No! That's not what I meant. Whatever it is, it's something else. It almost feels like there is something powerful in here with us. I can feel it all throughout my body and it's like it just _knows _that there is something in here that shouldn't be."

"Oh…_that_." Amber said with a sigh. "I know. I noticed it as soon as we can in here."

"I wonder what it is." Roxie murmured.

I tilted my head to the side slightly in confusion, a habit I had picked up from Amber since she did it so frequently whenever she was confused or didn't understand something. I wondered what they were talking about exactly. What were they feeling that would make them so uneasy?

"Just ignore it, it's not like anything in this room could harm us anyways." Amber whispered.

They fell into a stony silence after than and I frowned, what did she mean by the fact that nothing could hurt her? Amber and Roxie were both pretty tiny and I knew that they weren't the strongest people in the world, or at least I didn't _think_ they were. I stared at them for a while and noticed that something about them seemed more durable and stronger than it used to. It was then that I noticed something else shocking, neither of them were _breathing_. I stared at them in amazement for the rest of class—forgetting completely about my usually routine of sleeping through this class. They weren't even turning blue and they hadn't taken a breath since I had started watching them in the middle of class.

Suddenly the bell rang and both Amber and Roxie shot out of the classroom faster than I would have thought possible. It seemed like nobody else noticed though.

A few minutes later, I sat down in my desk in English still deep in thought at what I had just witnessed. I looked at my desk in surprise, I didn't even remember leaving the studyhall and walking to my neck class. I guess I was just _that _engrossed in my thoughts that I didn't even remember leaving second period. I became lost in my thoughts once more and I very surprised and just a little annoyed when Lola and Ethan popped up out of practically no where.

"Heya!" Lola said loudly, startling me. She sat down in the empty seat next to me with a large smile.

"Hey. 'Sup Bentley." Ethan said and gave me a high-five.

I returned his enthusiastic gesture half-heartedly. "Hey man." I said absent mindedly.

Lola rolled her eyes at me, "Daydreaming again?" she asked teasingly.

I scowled, "No."

"Bullshit! I bet you ten bucks that if he wasn't daydreaming about her, he was at least thinking about Amber." Ethan said.

"I wasn't _just_thinking about Amber—actually I was thinking about how different Roxie and Amber seemed today. Amber's history class had to come in with my studyhall today and they were just acting really weird and they looked different too." Ethan and Lola raised their eyebrows at me, "I don't know, maybe it's just me." I said.

Lola's smile dropped slightly, "Yeah I noticed that too. I wonder how Amber got her hair to look like that. It looks like she got it done in some sort of salon or something. But, didn't Amber tell us that they were camping and weren't returning until this morning? So how did they manage to fix up her hair like that in the woods?"

"And what's up with them hanging out with those two new kids, the senior and the new boy in our grade. They have never mentioned either of them before yet they seem to know them pretty well." Ethan pointed out.

"I know. Maybe we should ask them about lunch." I said. "But another thing that I was wondering about—I heard a couple of students talking about how they all came together in two cars this morning. In a Jeep and a really nice black car." I said.

"Oh, well that's true, I saw them pull into the parking lot this morning. The Jeep is Matt's beloved baby that he never gets the chance to drive and the black car is the new senior's Bentley." Ethan explained. He looked thoughtful for a moment, "Did you're birth parents realize that they named you after a car?" he teased lightheartedly.

I rolled my eyes at him and ignored his playful jab. "Oh, well I guess that makes a little bit of sense but I thought that they usually came in Brie and Olivia's cars. Speaking of Brie, where was she anyways? I haven't seen her at all today." I pondered.

Lola turned somber, "You didn't hear what happened?" she said sadly.

I shook my head, confused at where this was going.

"Brie was in a car accident on the way to their campsite. I guess she they had to driver her home because she felt sick or something. She supposedly was in her own car on her way back to the campsite when she crashed. Some guy that was passed the crash on his way out of town called the accident in. Rumor has it that Amber was about to call the police because she hadn't heard from Brie in a day when Amber's mom called and told them what happened. They were all crushed with the news." Lola explained.

My mouth opened and closed a couple of times. I was unsure exactly what to say to that. I was shocked to say the least and worried about how Amber and her friends were taking it. "When did this happen?" I finally asked.

Ethan shrugged, "Sometime during break, but nobody knows for sure so I can't tell you for sure what day it happened. The police and the families are keeping everything hush-hush. No one is exactly sure as to why or how it happened either. I bet the only way you can get any real information would be if you were to ask Amber about it." Ethan answered.

"Wow, Amber must be completely devastated. She was always really close with Brie." I whispered sadly.

Lola smiled sadly, "You really should talk to her about it later. Maybe that might help her a little bit." She suggested.

"Maybe." I said.

Lola suddenly save me a sly smile, "Are you ever going to ask her out?"

Ethan got a twin smirk on his face and I knew he was going to jump right in too. No one was _with _me anymore! They were all conspiring against me. Okay, so maybe that's a bit much but still.

"I think you should go for it. I mean, we all know that you have been in love with her for what seems like forever. Just ask her out already." Ethan told me.

I frowned, "I don't think she likes me that way."

Lola shook her head furiously, "You know that isn't true. Amber loves you the same way you love her and you know it. You are just too much of a chicken to accept it and see what it standing there right in front of your face. Get over yourself and just ask her out already." She said sternly.

I stared at Ethan and Lola—unsure of what the say. Of course it was no secret that I really liked Amber and more than anything wanted her to be my girlfriend, but could I really ask her? After thinking it over very carefully for a few minutes I decided on one thing—yes, yes I could.

I nodded without saying a word to Lola and Ethan.

Lola grinned, "So…you will?" she asked excitedly.

I nodded again.

She squealed and started to bounce up and down in complete joy and happiness. Several students and the teacher turned to look at the three of us. We were supposed to be having individual reading time so we had all been whispering so the teacher wouldn't realize we weren't reading. But no, Lola had managed to blow our cover. The teacher gave us a stern look as Lola managed to calm herself down a bit but I could tell she was till extremely happy about something.

"Oh my god! When are you going to ask her?" Lola exclaimed in a whisper, if that were even possible.

I shrugged, "Who knows," I said. "But it will probably be sometime later on today."

"You could ask her at lunch," Ethan said, offering his opinion. "After we get done eating just tell her that you need to talk to her about something important and then just ask her straight out to go on a date with you."

Lola nodded enthusiastically, "Right!"

I was about to reply when the English teacher called the entire class to attention for a good discussion on what we had supposed to have been reading during our individual reading time. I watched as Lola and Ethan quickly flipped through the pages of the book we were assigned. Luckily, I had already read the book.

I was just leaving English when I ran into someone. I was about to apologize but when my eyes finally focused on the person who I had ran over I had to fight the grimace that threatened to take over my face. I saw _Audrey Mills _standing before me, smiling up at me all the while wearing her usual sluttish attire. Most of the guys at school thought she was really hott but I on the other hand didn't care for girls who dressed so sluttish. In fact, only one girl at our school even managed to catch my eye and that person, without a doubt, was Amber.

"Hello Bentley…" Audrey said in what she probably assumed was a seductive voice. It was high pitched and breathy.

"Uh—hi Audrey." I answered, a little shocked at how she was acting around me.

She giggled slightly and pressed herself against me while resting her hand on my chest. I was so shocked I couldn't move, much less push her away. Audrey _never _talked to me. So why was she doing so now? I've went to school with her since I first moved here and she never once looked my way. What changed?

"So, I have a question for you." She said sweetly.

I gulped slightly, "What?"

"How about the two of us hook up?" she asked.

My eyes widened, "Will I _what?_" I asked.

"Be my boyfriend, Bentley." she replied simply, trying to push her lips into a pout.

I didn't even have to think about my answer, "Sorry but no." I said.

She pouted harder as I pushed her away from me and tried to leave. She grabbed my hand lightly, "You'll be back." she announced loudly. "Everyone knows your pathetically in love with Amber Mason. But guess what cutie, she doesn't love you back! So when she rejects your perky little ass, you'll do what they all do. You'll come crawling to me, and let me tell you Bentley, I _will_ be waiting." She said seriously.

I shook my head and chuckled under my breath, '_Like that would ever happen.'_

I completely ignored Audrey's harsh words. I wouldn't let her get to me and make me chicken out of telling Amber how I felt. Audrey didn't know shit anyways. I slowly made my way to the cafeteria for lunch, all the while trying to shake the previous encounter out of me head. I met Ethan and Xander at the back of the lunch line and we quickly made our way through the line to get our food. As I stepped out of line and looked to see who was all at our table, I was a little shocked to see three girls and another blond haired guy sitting at our table.

I raised my eyebrow slightly in confusion but then it hit me—it was Shay, Roxie, Amber—and some guy who I wasn't sure off. Amber was sitting in her usual spot, right on the end of the right side of the table while Roxie, Shay and the blond guy were positioned right across from her. They were talking in slightly hushed tones from what I could tell. About what, well that I wasn't sure about. For once my hearing wasn't acting up.

I caught myself staring at Amber and lost myself in thought as I walked over to the table, '_Wow, Amber looks even more beautiful today than she normally does. I wonder why her eyes are different today, I could have _sworn_ on my life that they were green but now they are purple. Maybe she got color contacts—maybe I should ask her.'_ I thought.

Then it seemed like three things seemed to happen simultaneously. First, Amber's head snapped up and she looked straight at me, with a look of surprise and slight disgust gracing her features. Second, I felt like my heart skipped a beat as she stared at me. Her gaze was so—alluring—despite the look of disgust on her face. And third, Shay, Roxie and the blond boy started to get worried looks on their faces, kind of like the looks Amber and Roxie had when they were talking about the weird feeling they were having in History.

I looked behind me and saw that Ethan and Xander were right behind me and waiting to get to the table so they could eat. I slowly took steps toward the table. Amber's head whipped around and she turned to glare at the blond guy. She mumbled something to him and then she and the other three got into a conversation. Suddenly Amber turned livid and she—_snarled_—literally snarled like an angry animal—at the blond haired boy.

'_Well, here goes nothing_.' I thought and approached the table.

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**_So, do you like Bentley's POV? Give me your thoughts and don't forget to please check out my story, "GHI: It's The Fear" :) It'd really mean alot to me if you guys would. :) A huge thanks and a virtual cookie/hug in advance to all those who do!_**


	18. Chapter 17: New Kids In Town

**Authors Note:**_ Hey guys, I apologizefor the super, super long wait on this chapter but things have been super hectic lately and the fact that I had a bit of writers block with this story and that I really, really got into my GHI story (which you all should read asap!) and well, honestly I don't really have an excuse but I really hope that this chapter makes up for it! I'm sick with the flu so I haven't been doing much the last three days and so I decided to take a break from my GHI story and to finish editing this chapter :) It's 7,300 words long so you get ALOT of info in this chapter so you all better enjoy it :) Anyways, please review guys and I'll just let you get to reading :) _

_Happy Reading,_

_- RIP._

_

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**PLAYLIST:**

_New Kids In Town_

- by -

Before Their Eyes

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**Chapter Seventeen – New Kids In Town**

**Amber POV**

It only took about fifteen minutes to arrive at school, which plenty of time for me to have two mini panic attacks and then calm myself down. As we pulled into the parking lot I felt a wave of butterflies being unleashed in my stomach for the third time since we had left the Harper house. I noticed that everyone just stopped and stared as we pulled into the parking lot—it wasn't everyday that someone pulled into the parking lot with a car like a _Bentley_. Sure, everyone was well off where we lived but people didn't have big, fancy business cars like that. Plus, everyone was used to my friends and I being in the _Lexus_ and the _Saab_. Sadly we probably wouldn't be taking either of those cars to school now. One, the _Saab_ is completely destroyed and there is no one to drive it and two, we have the _Bentley_ and the _SUV_ to drive now.

We parked our two cars into two parking spaces that were right next to each other and together we got out of the cars, getting out in a graceful manner that only _we_ could achieve. The first thing I noticed besides the stares as we got out from our cars was the smell of blood and the sound of thumping hearts. They were all around us. At first I was a little scared that it was going to be overwhelming but it didn't seem to bother me at all. It seemed completely normal. The smell and sounds just pounded away in my ears yet did nothing else. I quickly turned to look at my family and saw that they were having the same reactions. I couldn't help but let a small smile grace my face for that. But, as soon as my smile appeared, it dropped from my face in an instant. Because in that second I realized that no longer would my heart beat, or anyone else's in my family for that matter. These children were lucky, they still got to breathe in deeply, they got to eat real food and actually have it satisfy them, they could feel their hearts racing in their chests when their crush walked passed them and offered them a shy smile. I could never experience any of those things again.

Never.

'_Damn you_ _Vicente_.' I thought.

To get rid of those jealous thoughts, I opened up my mind channel to see what the student body was thinking about us. Immediately I got a response. It was like a rush of thoughts attacked my brain. They were poking, prodding and invading my skull. I felt like they were surrounding them, bringing me down to my knees as hundreds of voices started screaming in my head. It was extremely overwhelming at first but after a while I was able to control it. If I looked at one child and focused really hard, the other thoughts swarming, wrapping and twisted around my body would just disappear and I could think happily again.

'_Holy hell those kids are fucking gorgeous!' _

'_Hmm, I wonder who those two new kids are? No one said anything about new kids starting today.'_

'_Did they always look like that or did they just get hotter over the break?'_

'_Who are they? Are they new? Surely mom would have told me if we were getting new kids.'_

'_What are those two new kids doing with them? They never let anyone new into that group.'_

'_I wonder if those girls are good in bed.'_

'_I can't believe Brie was really in a car accident. But it doesn't look like they are grieving too much though—they already replaced her.'_

'_I wonder where the other girl in there group is. Smoking!'_

'_Damn, I'd tap that!'_

'_I wonder if either of those guys are taken by the girls. Damn, they are both fucking sexy Did they always look like that? There has to be something different. Their gazes are so…enthralling.'_

I could have stood in that parking lot and went through the thoughts of every individual in the parking lot but it would be a waste of time to do so. Every thoughts were the same. They were all centered around one thing: my family. But even so, I was still curious so I kept one listening. The thoughts went on and on and on like the ones before them. Just as I had predicted, nearly everyone who was in the student parking lot was thinking something about us. Some of their thoughts completely aggravated me—especially when people thought we had replaced Brie with Grace and Jeremy.

When I had gotten my fill of prodding into my peers minds, I looked over to Shay. Immediately I took in her expression and didn't even bother to read her mind. I wanted to give my family and friends at least some privacy. I would extend that gesture to my friends at school as well. But in that moment, I knew something was wrong. The look on Shay's faces spoke thousands of words.

"What is it?" I asked curiously.

Shay looked at me in surprise, her violet eyes were open with surprise but there was a certain amount of disgust lying in their swirly depts. "I can—I can see everything that they are feeling. Their auras are—it's like a freaking rainbow out there except most of them have dark red, silver and green swirling around them. I think—I think that they're all mad, confused and jealous." Shay explained but even she sounded unsure of herself. She wasn't making much sense but I knew that she was trying her hardest to at least make me understand. "Oh and god, some of the lust coming off on them is just plain awful—not to mention disgusting." I noticed how she couldn't help but shudder slightly as she spoke the last sentence.

"I know what you mean. Don't even get me _started _on their thoughts." I told her, trying my hardest to help her understand that I knew her predicament. "Trust me. You really don't want to know what they are thinking about us."

Jeremy laughed, "Sucks to be you guys."

I turned around and gave my new brother a vicious look. In his eyes, I could see the reflection of my firm stature and inhuman ferocity. When I spoke, my voice was low. "No actually it sucks to be you, because a lot of what they are thinking is focused on you and Grace." I retorted.

'_If they think they are going to touch Jeremy they have another thing coming!' _I heard Shay shout in her mind.

Immediately I lost my irritated stance and giggled as I shot Shay a knowing look. I hadn't actually meant to read her mind but the thought was so strong that he literally broke through the barrier that I had mentally created. She turned to look at the ground sheepishly while Jeremy just looked plain confused.

"What is it?" Jeremy asked looking between me and Shay.

"Looks like _someone_ is a little jealous," I sang. "I don't even need to see auras to know that."

Shay scowled but Jeremy's eyes widened in surprise, "Wait, what? People are having sick fantasies about me?" he asked, a hint of awe in his voice. I raised an eyebrow but nodded yes to his question.

Shay looked slightly put out and turned away, crossing her arms and letting an annoyed look cross her features, "Why do you sound so happy about that?" she whispered angrily.

"I'm not happy—just surprised." Jeremy said as he grabbed Shay by the shoulders and turned her to face him. He offered her a crooked smiled, "Don't worry, they don't matter."

Shay managed to give him a small smile in return, but her thoughts were still raging crossly about the disgusting minds and feelings coming from our own peers. I could understand why she was reacting the way that she was.

To many, they would find it fascinating to get inside your friends, your peers and your teachers heads but it wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. Human's thoughts were vulgar, disgusting and sometimes just plain wrong. Their feelings were uncontrollable and unpredictable. They couldn't help it—it's just how they were made. That's why it wasn't programmed into the human nature to reach each other's thoughts and emotions because if it was, the world would be in total chaos. I knew that after today I would never be able to look at the people in my school the same way again. Their thoughts were—well, let's just say it I would have to be a lot more forgiving from now on when dealing with my peers.

While Shay, Jeremy and I had been talking amongst ourselves Matt, Olivia, Roxie and Grace had been discussing their classes and teachers. They had moved slightly away from the cars and were standing near the school's entrance. Several students who walked by us and mingled around that area turned to stare at us in school as Jeremy, Shay and I walked over to our family to include ourselves in their conversation.

"We need to get our schedules." Grace said as she pointed to herself and then at Jeremy.

I thought for a moment, considering everyone's schedules into consideration before speaking. "Well Shay, Roxie and I can show you the office. We all go by there to get to our first class." I suggested.

"You guys would do that?" Grace asked kindly.

"It's no problem." Roxie told her with a shrug.

Shay interrupted with an apologetic look on her features, "Well as much as I'd love you, I can't this morning." She said sadly. "I have a paper I have to turn into Mr. King before class starts."

Jeremy nodded, "Oh, okay well that's alright. I guess Amber and Roxie can take me and Grace there." Roxie and I nodded in agreement. "Let's go." He said, gesturing with his hand towards the front doors.

"So, we will see you at lunch?" Shay asked him as he got ready to walk away.

I watched as Jeremy nodded at her in agreement, offering a small smile before he reached over and gave her a quick hug goodbye. Grace, Roxie, Jeremy and I then left the little group to get to the office. Olivia, Matt and Shay called out their goodbyes as we left.

We all walked elegantly into the office. It was like one of those cheesy movies where the popular, good looking students walk into the place in slow motion with fans blowing their hair around and shit. Maybe it was like that, maybe that was just the imagination of one of the teachers. I couldn't be for sure because several of the personnel that were in the office turned their heads to look at us with wide eyes and I lost track of which teacher was thinking what. But one incident stood out from all the rest—a male teacher standing closest to the office door lost his grip on his coffee cup and ended up spilling all the steaming hot coffee down the front of his white button up shirt. The funniest part was that he didn't even feel a damn thing—he was so entranced by our entrance. I tried hard to contain my laughter by biting my lip.

I walked up to the secretary in the office, my heeled boots clicking against the floor as I walked. When I reached her, I smiled politely. The gray haired secretary looked at me once, seeming uninterested but quickly did a double take before looking back at me with wide eyes. '_Is that Amber Mason? She looks so much different. So much more—c-composed and confident. Oh, lookie here, who are these two new students? Hmm, that boy is extremely cute.' _

"Good morning Mrs. Grandly." I said in my musical voice, trying my hardest to ignore her thoughts.

"G-good morning Amber," The poor secretary stuttered.

Grace stepped forward at this point and held out her hand slightly, "Hello my name is Grace Harper and this is my cousin, Jeremy Harper. We're new here and we need to pick up our schedules for class." She told the secretary while gesturing to her own self and then Jeremy.

"Oh yes I have your schedule's right here." Mrs. Grandly said in a squeaky voice.

Looking down at her desk, she ripped open a drawer before she quickly but clumsily, began sorting through a pile of schedules that were placed inside. She mumbled to herself as she sorted, '_Harper, Harper, Harper? Where are you? I just saw you earlier. Harper. Oh! Here we go_!'

She pulled out two schedules and then handed the papers to Grace's out reached hand. Grace and Jeremy thanked her and we were about to turn and leave the office when I noticed that three older male teachers were staring at Grace with lustful their eyes. I reached my hand out and stopped Grace from walking as I was hit with their thoughts before I could even close off my mind channel.

'_That new girl has a very nice chest. I hope she will be in one of my classes. She has got to be at least ten times sexier than my wife!' _one teacher thought breathlessly.

I looked over to Grace and smirked. Fortunately, she had absolutely no idea what was going on. I watched as Grace courteously said goodbye to the now extremely flustered secretary before we all left the office, leaving several dropped jaws in our wake. As soon as I shut the office door behind me, Grace turned to me and glared. "What were you laughing about in there?" She demanded. "You were looking at me and laughing so I know it had something to do with me."

I grasped her arm and continued walking before I started to talk. At the moment, we were passing the junior's lockers so I lowered my voice so only we—vampires with special hearing—could hear, "One of the teachers has a _crush_ on you. He thought you had a very nice chest and that he wants you in his class. Oh yeah and you are about ten times sexier than his wife." I told her.

Grace's face turned from a of horror to disgust to fear in less than ten seconds flat while Roxie and Jeremy bit their cheeks to keep from laughing. Nearby I heard Matt's booming laughter. I wasn't surprised that he had heard, we were walking by the Junior's lockers after all.

Sure enough as I looked up ahead of us I saw that Matt was standing by his locker, holding his sides to try and trying to catch his breath while Olivia was watching him with an amused expression on her face. His loud laughter had caused many people to stop and stare in confusion and annoyance.

'_Great. More thoughts that I _don't_ want to hear_.' I thought unpleasantly while I put up a mind block.

When Olivia saw us walking towards them she turned to us and spoke, "A teacher was seriously thinking that? Isn't that a bit unprofessional?" she asked.

I nodded, "Yep, sure was." I said.

I'm pretty sure that if Matt could _really_ cry, he would have tears coming out of his eyes from how hard he was laughing by this point in time. I giggled as he coughed a few times and smoothed his hands over his face to get some better control over himself.

"Having problems breathing?" Jeremy teased.

Matt nodded and smirked knowingly at Jeremy before apologizing for laughing at Grace, "Sorry Grace, but that was pretty hilarious. The teachers here all seem so uptight so it's just weird knowing that one of them was thinking something like that."

Grace shrugged, accepting his apology with a small smile. "I'm just glad I'm not like Amber and have to actually hear and see all of those thoughts." She admitted.

I giggled, "Trust me. You don't _ever_ want to have this power. At least I can close off my mind channel to thoughts I don't want to hear. I would hate to see someone who can't turn their power off."

Roxie was about to speak when the warning bell rang signaling we only had five minutes before our first period classes started. Jeremy and Grace looked up in surprise at the bell so we quickly explained the concept behind them. They seemed a little confused but eventually went with it.

"So, what classes do you two have first?" Roxie asked intriguingly, trying to peak at their schedules.

Jeremy looked down at his schedule, "Uh I have English first." He announced.

"With Mr. King?" I asked him with a smirk.

He nodded.

"That's cool, you have first hour with me and Shay." I explained.

I then stood up on my tip-toes to look over his shoulder so I could get a better look at the schedule that he was holding in his pale hands. After reading over it I looked up at him and spoke, "Looks like yours and Shay's schedule is almost exactly the same. It's fate I guess." I told him with a shrug of indifference.

He shot a surly scowl in my direction which caused me to laugh harder.

"Well, Grace what class do you have first?" Olivia asked.

"Study Hall with Mrs. Tomas—that means I just have a free period, right?" she asked nervously, obviously confused about the way that the school ran.

Matt nodded, "Yeah that is exactly what it is."

I looked up at the clock, "Oh crap—we better get to class. We have less than two minutes." I announced. The hallways were nearly empty at this point and we didn't even notice.

"Can you show me where the English room is?" Jeremy asked me.

"Yeah, I'm going there now, remember?" I told him.

After saying goodbyes once again to Matt, Olivia, Grace and Roxie—Jeremy and I turned to make our way to the English room. As we walked at a fast pace towards the classroom together, I told him a little about the school and about my friends. I was in the middle of speaking when I almost stopped dead in my tracks. We were right in front of the Spanish room which was right next to the English classroom when I shivered violently. It wasn't because I was cold, I didn't get cold anymore. No it was because I just felt this thing that told me that there was something else there with us, something that could possibly be dangerous. It didn't smell right either. It didn't smell human to me but it didn't smell vampire. I had gotten used to the smell of humans quickly, it didn't bother me. But this, it smelled different. Like a tangy scent. I didn't like it at all.

I decided that the best thing to do would be to ignore the feeling and not even mention it to Jeremy.

We entered the English classroom and everyone's heads snapped up to look at us, they all looked uneasily at Jeremy and I. Ignoring the other kids in the class, I looked around and saw Shay in her usual seat looking extremely excited. At first I thought that maybe we were doing something exciting in class today but after reading her thoughts I realized that her excitement was actually because Jeremy was in this class with us.

"Follow me." I told Jeremy.

I led him up to the teacher's desk. Mr. King was looking at his computer when we walked up. As soon as he saw us he looked up and gave me a creepy smile before he turned his attention to Jeremy. Mr. King had always given me the creeps. He was a good teacher and everything but he just, he was just a little odd. "Good morning, are you Jeremy Harper?" he asked in a booming yet cheerful voice.

'_No_ _one—and I repeat—no one should be this happy during the morning_.' I thought.

Jeremy nodded, "Yeah, that's me."

"Well please go pick a seat in one of the rows out there. Right now everyone is just reviewing the reading material." Mr. King told him.

Mr. King rummaged around on his desk before finding the book that he was looking for. He handed Jeremy a copy of the book that we were reading—'Romeo & Juliet.' Personally, I liked the book. When I first skimmed through it, I found out that it was extremely hard to understand to old language but over time, I had found that if you actually sat down and really read the text that it was actually pretty simple to understand. Of course, I did keep a dictionary at my side the entire time, but that was beside the point.

Jeremy nodded at Mr. King and thanked him as I turned to sit in my usual seat right behind Shay. When I looked around there were no other seats around me and Shay. Jeremy looked disappointed and was about to go sit somewhere else but Shay had other ideas.

There was a nerdy boy sitting on the other side of Shay. He was one of those kids who was on the chess team, the debate club, science club and tutored students for free and because of that, he got picked on by the jocks. I had seen him being shoved into some lockers a few times and felt bad for him. Sadly, I didn't even know his name.

"Hi." Shay giggled, looking at him.

His pale blue eyes widened in surprise behind his thick rimmed glasses. He was shocked that Shay was actually speaking to him. He looked around and saw that she wasn't speaking to anyone else for a moment before it finally hit him that she _was _indeed speaking to him. "H-hi." He stuttered out in amazement.

"Could you do me a tiny favor?" Shay asked in a sickly sweet voice.

"Y-yes. Anyt-thing." The boy replied in a squeaky voice that was surprisingly his _actual _voice. No wonder jocks picked on him.

Shay giggled again and dazzled the poor boy completely. His little heart started pounding uncontrollably in his chest and I noticed that his hands were starting to sweat. I didn't need my power or Shay's power to know exactly how he was feeling or what he was thinking at that moment. Everyone was spelled right across his face. Jeremy and the students surrounding us all looked at Shay in confusion while I just smirked. I knew exactly what she was up to.

"Would you please move to another seat so Jeremy can sit next to me? You see I'm his girlfriend and as you can see he is new here and wants to sit by people that he knows." Shay said.

After she had finished speaking, many of the girls in the room started to think livid and jealous thoughts about Shay when she told the nerd she was dating Jeremy. I knew that she could feel their jealousy pouring off of them because when she said this, her Cheshire smile grew more and more pronounced. The boy looked a little dejected by her but granted her wishes none the less.

I learned forward in my desk and began whispering in a quick tone, "You crushed that poor boy's dream, Jeremy! He was hoping that Shay was going to ask him out on a date." I teased as he took his seat where the boy had previously been sitting.

Jeremy laughed, "That's not going to happen." He said before he looked at Shay who nodded in agreement.

"He was so flustered it wasn't even funny!" Shay giggled.

"You were completely dazzling Shay. He couldn't even hardly manage to think complete thoughts." I told her.

She laughed, "Being a vamp has its advantages." She said in a low voice that only we could hear.

I giggled along with her and to be honest, I couldn't agree more.

* * *

Classes went by extremely fast and by the time I knew it I was in third period again with only five minutes until the bell rang. Nothing strange had happened since first period and I hadn't got the chance to talk to Shay, Jeremy, Grace, Olivia or Matt since I had said goodbye to Shay and Jeremy after English. Second period I had World History with Roxie. While in that class though I felt the strange feeling again, the one that literally sent shivers down my spine. And this time it was even stronger but it was hard for me to pick up on for some reason. Roxie felt it too because she was the one that had pointed it out to me.

Suddenly I felt someone tap my shoulder; I turned around to see Carly and Audrey sitting beside me with fake smiles on their faces. I decided to dig into their minds to see what was up.

'_I bet she had plastic surgery done or something. I mean there is no way that she got that pretty that fast. And her hair looks totally fake, not that her hair was even pretty to begin with. And her eyes! Purple totally isn't her color but she is totally getting all the guys attention now! I just don't get it. I'm like fifty times prettier than her! She isn't even special." _Carly thought.

'_Wow I never thought Amber could pull off looking like a slut but she does right now. Damn I should go and flirt with Bentley just to piss her off. Yah, I think I'm going to do that. Take that stupid bitch._' Audrey thought with an evil smile on her face.

I had to literally fight the low growl that was trying to escape my chest. I tried to stay calm but it seemed like they could tell that I was already angry. It just seemed to make them more encouraged to push me over the line. Little did they know just how dangerous that was. If I really wanted to could snap their necks like toothpicks before they even knew what was happening to them. Of course, I'd never do that but the thought was very tempting right at that moment. Carly's thoughts were bad but Audrey's thoughts were even worse. How dare she think that she could steal Bentley away from me? He was _mine_. Even if it wasn't official or anything.

"So where did you get your plasti—I mean makeover done at?" Carly asked, almost slipping out with the word 'plastic surgery.'

I snorted, "Despite what you think I didn't have plastic surgery. I've always looked like this. I can't believe you have never noticed before." I told her with what most would consider an innocent face but the animalistic glint in my eyes was there. I could tell that she could see it by the way she shrank back at my words.

Her hazel eyes grew the size of saucers, "I never said that you—" I cut her off.

"It slipped. I'm not stupid you know." I said.

'_Yes you are.' _Carly thought.

I rolled my eyes at her thoughts.

This time Audrey spoke, "Well whatever you did to yourself, it makes you _like_ about ten times more sluttish than normal."

I snorted once again, "Why don't you take a look at yourself," I said while gesturing to her outfit. Audrey looked down innocently and looked back up at me. Her almond shaped blue eyes held a severe iciness as I began to insult her but I didn't care. "I'm not the one who is wearing a 3 inch mini skirt that barely covers your butt and a shirt that is so low cut that my boobs are practically falling out of it." I told her.

Audrey's eyes turned even more livid and I knew she was about to yell at me but the bell rang. It put a whole new meaning to the phrase, '_saved by the bell_.' I quickly rushed out of the classroom before they could even get a word out. "Bye bitches." I called out as I left. I didn't even care if the teacher heard me or not. It's not like they could technically stop me if they wanted to.

I ran down the hallway, laughing the entire way. By the time I had reached the cafeteria I had gotten control of my laughter and noticed that Roxie was waiting for me by the cafeteria doors, "Hey where are Shay and Jeremy?" I asked her.

"They are already in the cafeteria, guarding our usual table." She told me. "So how was class?"

We were already in the cafeteria and nearing out table. "Don't even ask." I said as I rubbed my temples in distress. I saw Shay waving us over to the table. Roxie and I skipped going through the lunch line since it wasn't like we could actually eat the food here now anyways. So, we walked straight over to sit down at the nearly vacant table. Shay and Jeremy were sitting on one side so Roxie and I decided to sit across from them to even it out.

"Why, what happened last period?" Shay asked as I sat down. With her vampire hearing she had heard me from across the cafeteria.

"Carly and Audrey thought I got plastic surgery. Then Audrey told me I managed to look ten times sluttier than usual so then I went off on her. Oh yeah, and she even had to nerve to think she could steal Bentley from me." I told them.

"Who are Carly and Audrey?" Jeremy asked, wrinkling his eyebrows together in perplexity.

"Only the two most annoying girls at our school," Roxie replied with a groan. "I'm sure you'll be graced with their presence at some point today." She added sarcastically.

"Really?" Jeremy asked.

Suddenly someone's thoughts reached my head, '_Wow, Amber looks even more beautiful today than she normally does. I wonder why her eyes are different today, I could have _sworn_ on my life that they were green but now they are purple. Maybe she got color contacts—maybe I should ask her.' _The person thought.

Bentley Rivera.

Three things then seemed to happen simultaneously. One, my breath caught at the fact that Bentley called me beautiful. Two, I became nervous of the fact that he noticed my eyes were different. _How was I supposed to explain that_? Three, Shay and Roxie got worried looks on their faces as Jeremy let out a small snarl. It was loud enough for a couple of boys at the table behind us to turn around and look at us with prying eyes.

"Jeremy!" I hissed out.

When he finally lifted his head to me, I noticed that his eyes were darker. The bright violet color was now a dark plum and his lips were pulled back slightly in warning. When I took a chance to look at Roxie and Shay—they were in similar positions.

"What's going on?" I asked them in a demanding voice.

Roxie turned to me with distress written in her eyes. "That feeling, you know, that weird one that we had in our History class this morning?" she questioned in a speedy voice. I nodded. "Well, it's back and for some reason, it's stronger." She told me anxiously.

She was right. I had noticed it earlier because I had been lost in my thoughts but when I let myself think about it, I felt it. It was a lot stronger than before. Before I was just a little bit creep out by the feeling but now it was shivering all the way down my spine. My internal instincts were screaming for me to run or attack. I wasn't sure which part to act upon. It look ever ounce of my self control to stay glued to my spot.

"Do you feel it now?" Jeremy asked with a jeer.

I nodded, "Unfortunately."

"I feel like I wanna throw up…or run away—or maybe attack something." Shay said in a conflicted voice.

Jeremy chuckled a tense laugh, "Well, if you run, you will probably cause a scene and we don't need that. You can't throw up either. It is physically impossible for a vam—" he started in his normal voice but I cut him off with a loud growl before I could stop myself.

"Shut up, not here!" I snarled at him.

Ethan, Bentley and Xander were walking towards are table with confused looks on their faces. By their thoughts I knew that they had heard my snarl. I put on an innocent face but I knew that my eyes were blazing.

"I wonder why we are all getting this feeling?" Roxie asked, changing the subject.

"I'm not sure. I would just ignore it for now. It's probably the only option we have at the moment." Jeremy suggested in a whisper while scratching the back of his neck slightly.

Shay, Roxie and I just nodded and we all lapsed into silence as Bentley, Ethan and Xander sat down at the table—their confused looks still firmly in tact. Bentley sat down next to me while Ethan and Xander sat down across from Bentley.

As soon as Bentley sat down I felt my involuntary instincts settle in, he was too close. I hadn't had this problem with any other of the humans so far. I tensed and I felt immediately repulsed by him. Roxie suddenly looked at me in alarm.

'_Oh my god Amber your eyes are turning darker—what's wrong?' _she thought.

Before I could reply to her Ethan spoke, "Hey guys, how was the trip?" he asked.

Shay, Roxie and I all tensed while Jeremy looked immediately uncomfortable.

"Interesting." Shay said simply.

"Care to elaborate interesting?" Bentley smirked and looked at me.

Something inside me snapped and I felt my expression turn dangerous and my lips pulled back into a ferocious snarl. It wasn't loud but everyone at the table heard it, "None of your business, Rivera." I snapped.

Bentley looked hurt but he didn't look scared at all about my reaction, unlike Ethan and Xander were at the moment. In fact, Bentley looked completely relaxed.

"Are—are you alright?" he asked me.

I gave him a menacing smile but didn't relax my defensive stance, "Fabulous." I mocked.

Shay, Roxie and Jeremy were looking at me with surprised and worried expressions. Ethan and Xander looked scared while Bentley just looked hurt and surprised.

"So are you guys okay?" Xander asked.

"About what?" Roxie asked in a guarded voice.

"Didn't Brie get into a—" Xander started but he was cut off by Shay. This time her lips were pulled back but it was for a different reason than the reason why _I_ was mad. Roxie kicked Shay under the table to relax her tense posture and Shay immediately relaxed but her eyes were still fierce.

Bentley was still looking at me with a hurt expression. He reached on and placed his hand on my arm. It was a gesture I normally would have not minded but now for some reason, something was different. It was as if his hand burned my arm, and not in a pleasant way. I shrugged his arm off with a quick yank and then I settled into a distrustful position with my hands brought into fists on my sides.

Suddenly Jeremy's thought's reached me, '_Amber your eyes are turning pitch black—you need to calm down. Why are you acting like this?' _he thought.

I turned my dark eyes to take in his apprehensive expression, "I'm not sure." I said truthfully. I didn't know why I was acting the way I was.

"I'm getting Grace, Matt and Olivia—now. This—this isn't normal." Jeremy said.

Before I could even begin to protest, he swung his legs over the bench and started making his way to the other side of the cafeteria. I frowned because I really didn't want to make a scene but at the same time, I knew that getting the others was a necessity. I kept my eyes low to the table, there was no use alerting Bentley or his friends.

"What's going on? Why is he getting Grace?" Roxie asked in bewilderment.

I then shifted my eyes to look at her. The second that she noticed my eyes, she gasped, "We need Matt." She whispered.

I nodded, "Matt _and_ Olivia." I added.

It was at that moment that the other boys at the table decided that they didn't like being left out of the conversation. Ethan spoke, changing the subject. I wasn't sure if this relieved me or annoyed me. "So how do you guys know that guy?" He asked, jabbing his thumb in the direction that Jeremy had taken off to.

"He's my boyfriend." Shay answered swiftly before any of the rest of us got the chance to answer.

"But he didn't come to our school before." Xander pointed out suspiciously.

Shay, Roxie and I exchanged a nervous glance before Roxie decided to answer for us, "He transferred here to be closer to Shay." she lied straight through her teeth.

"And his cousin came with him." I added.

"Oh, well that's understanding, so is that who the new senior is?" Bentley asked.

I gave a short and curt nod in Bentley's direction. I couldn't manage to do much more at the moment. My hands tightly clutched the bench that we were sitting on with a great force. I momentarily hoped that I didn't accidently bend the wood when my force but I couldn't bring myself to care. Suddenly, I looked up to see Grace, Olivia, Matt and Jeremy walking towards us with worried looks on their faces.

'_What the hell?' _Matt thought as he took in my appearance.

'_Oh my god! Merce, what happened?!' _Olivia thought.

Grace's thoughts were the ones that surprised me to no end, '_It can't be! How on earth…?' _she thought.

I raised an eyebrow but ignored her eyes and focused on our current problem, "My eyes turned black and we can't figure out why. I can't relax either. Bentley touched me and I just started freaking out. What is wrong with me?" I asked in a low swift voice that the humans could only make out as a buzzing sound.

'_How can her lips be moving so fast? Is she freaking buzzing or something cause god that is what it sounds like!' _Bentley thought. '_Her eyes were just purple—how did they turn black?!'_ As this ran through his head I let off a soft growl.

"What happened to you Merce?" Matt asked verbally.

I frowned, "We aren't sure. I mean, I don't understand what happened."

"She just went completely crazy when that boy sat down next to her." Jeremy added.

Then, once again, Grace's words shocked me. She ignored all of us and instead said, "Do you all feel that?" she asked, ignoring our other comments.

"You mean the weird feeling of uneasiness?" Matt asked.

Grace nodded, "Yes." She said shortly.

I interrupted. I was angry and confused all at once. I felt like all my emotions were beginning to run haywire on me. I needed answers and I needed them now! "What's going on? Why am I reacting this way to Bentley?" I asked Grace.

"Who?" she asked, obviously confused and not knowing who Bentley even was.

I nodded my head quickly in Bentley's direction, so fast that he didn't even notice that I did it. "The guy sitting next to me," I explained.

"Oh, well, there is something different about him." Grace said cautiously. "I don't know how to tell you guys…" she said nervously.

"What do you mean?" Roxie asked.

'_What are they talking about?' _Bentley thoughts crawled into my brain. I shook my head and tried my hardest to ignore him.

Instead, my focused my eyes on a shifty looking Grace. "Uh—let's just say that he isn't that much different than what you are." She finally said.

"What are you talking about Grace, Bentley is human." Shay replied.

Grace looked edgy again, "Not exactly."

I heard the answer in her head before she even spoke it. My eyes widened in surprise, anger and disbelief. Distantly, I heard Shay mutter something about me being bipolar. This was probably because she had been reading my emotions and they were changing dramatically.

"What?!" I roared loudly before I could even begin to stop myself. Towards the end it turned into a vicious snarl that I had to work very hard to control to where only my family could hear.

Bentley, Ethan and Xander all jumped at my loud outburst. They had been trying to listen to our conversation but I hadn't been worried—there was no way they could ever actually hear it. Several kids turned to stare at me but quickly looked away when I sent them a furious glare.

"What's wrong Amber? What is it? What did she think?" Olivia asked swiftly. With the speed that she was speaking at, all of her questions seemed to blend together and even I had a hard time understand her.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bentley hesitantly start to scoot closer to me, "Merce, are you alright?" He asked softly.

My head snapped to look at him. I couldn't stop the confusion and pain that entered my expression, "I'm fine."

"No you're not Merce. What's the matter? Why are you acting like this?" he demanded.

I forced my expression to go blank and I shook my head with a sigh, "Whatever Bentley, I'm fine. Leave me the hell alone. You have no idea what you are dealing with!" He tried to put his hand on my shoulder again but with a sudden force, I shrugged him away from me.

"What—what did I do?" he stuttered slightly. "Did I say something wrong?" Bentley asked—clearly hurt by my words.

I wasn't trying to hurt him but…

"What's the matter Merce? Why are you treating him like that? What did Grace say?" Matt asked.

I looked up and took in all the faces that were awaiting my answer. Grace looked conflicted and was shooting worried glances in Bentley's direction. My best friends in the history of the universe all were looking at me expectedly, they all wanted answers as well. Jeremy looked like he was partly in the know and partly perplexed at the same time. Ethan and Xander were so lost it wasn't even funny but it was Bentley's face that struck me the most. His face looked so heartbroken it made me want to cry. I knew I couldn't let him affect me though. Things had changed at a moment's notice and my family had the right to know. I took a deep breath and glanced in the eyes of each of my family members before I finally gathered the courage to speak. I muttered the word quietly but they all still heard.

"Shifter..."

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**_Okay, so what do you think? Please leave a review. I'll update faster if you review and check out my GHI story :) I'd really appreciate it!_**


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